An Actuarial Study of the Relationship of Grades Earned in Certain High School Subjects and Curricula to Academic Success in College, and the Efficiency of Counselor Prediction of College Success

Abstract

In this study an attempt was made to review critically the relationship of grades earned in certain high school subjects to academic success in college. Subjects selected were American history and English IV, since special college-preparatory sections of these two courses have been devised for and required of all students graduating in the college-preparatory curriculum at Township High School District 214. The purpose of a second portion of this study was the measuring of the efficiency in the prediction of college success of those tow counselors whose special responsibility is recommendation of students to colleges and universities. In this school, as in many, counselors, in working with an individual student, will quantify mentally a variety of data about that student and come up with a guess, or a hunch, or a meaningful statistical probability based upon research, of that student’s changes for success in a given college. At our school these are guesses or hunches and it is the purpose of this study to provide statistical tools to facilitate that prediction for the student’s success