Predicting College Success

Most university admissions officers are aware that college board Scholastic Aptitude Tests are not the only guide to probable academic success -- but they are not sure just what other criteria prove that a student is worth a gamble.

Normally, four types of students are likely to be passed over: the "overachiever," who gets low SAT scores but had excellent high school grades; the "late bloomer," whose grades were poor but whose college board scores show promise; the high school leader too busy with extracurricular activities to get good grades; the specialist, who is brilliant in one field but otherwise mediocre.

In a ten-year study financed by the Ford Foundation, Williams College is gambling on all four types, selects 10% of each freshman class from applicants who do not meet its normal standards.

Preliminary results indicate that 80% of these students will graduate--roughly comparable to the survival rate for the whole college. But Williams has also found that the "late bloomer" is overrated--the boy who did poorly in high school seldom blossoms suddenly forth in college. The specialist also proves disappointing. On the other hand, the campus leader seems to have the ability to get through a rough adjustment period, then does well. The best gamble apparently is the high school "overachiever." Concludes Philip F. Smith, coordinator of the Williams plan: "College board scores are much less important than high school performance" in predicting college success.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.