Predicting College Success

I had a conversation this morning with my sister, who is homeschooling her two teenagers. She commented that a prestigious school had dropped the ACT and SAT requirements, which made her happy because she doesn't teach her kids with a final test in mind. So we got to talking about the whole business of college admissions.

The college admissions people are in the business of filling their colleges with people who look like they might be successful students. Nobody looks good when a kid flunks out. And of course, the big standardized tests were supposed to be sort of a democratic device so a kid from a low-quality school district would have an even chance with a kid from a good one. It never worked out that way, of course. The tests were supposed to measure ability (that's why it's the Scholastic Aptitude Test), but they really measure what you have learned.

I'd like a different test. I'm not sure how I'd do it, but I'd like something that measures personal maturity.

We've all known someone like Sebastian Flyte. He's a character in the novel, Brideshead Revisited. He's got everything. Money, intelligence, social position (He's actually Lord Sebastian Flyte). He's good looking, fun, and funny. Off he goes to college. He has trouble finding time to attend all his classes. He drinks a lot. By the end of the very long novel, he has found his niche in life. He's sweeping the floors at a monastery and occasionally taking a month off to be drunk.

In twelve years of teaching I've seen a lot of Sebastians. In fact, something like 25% of America's college freshmen have enough of a drinking problem to get in the way of their studies. They were bright kids who really thought that Animal House was filmed as a documentary. I remember one boy from my hometown. He was the smartest thing that Mansfield had made in years—always getting academic prizes, winning everything for his school at Academic Challenge. And, yes, tall and good looking. He got an early admission to Washington University (my alma mater, and a pretty tough place), so he left in January. He'd flunked out by June. Booze.

I also seem to have a lot of kids who have a "condition" (and it isn't always drink or drugs) that just seems to get in the way of attendance. It seems that about 10% of my students just can't seem to pull themselves together to attend class. Sometimes they present a doctor's excuse, and sometimes not. Either way, they usually fail because they haven't a clue what we're doing.

As a little side topic, isn't it interesting that education is the only place where people are pleased to get less than they paid for? If a student pays to attend my class for 45 clock hours and I dismiss class early one day, the student is overjoyed. If the student can skip out of 20 of those hours without me saying anything, he figures he's a winner.

Anyhow, back to my alma mater, Washington U., I remember the chancellor saying that a mediocre person with a good work ethic is much more likely to do well than a person with high abilities and no discipline.

I just wish we could design an SAT that could measure sobriety and work habits.

A few attendance statistics

In the Spring 2008 semester, I had 93 students. At one school, we met twice a week (27 class sessions). At the other, we met three times a week (40 class sessions). I failed three students for plagiarism (a somewhat low total). Two of those students left in the middle of the semester, so I didn't include them in the tabulation below.

At the two-day-a-week school, 18 (out of 56) students got an A minus or better. Six of those had perfect attendance; the worst missed four days. The average number of absences for students getting A minus or better was 1.28.

At the three-day-a-week school, 9 (out of 33) students got an A minus or better. One had perfect attendance; the worst missed four days. The average number of absences for this group was 2.

At the two-day-a-week school, 9 got a D plus or worse. The average number of absences for students getting D plus or lower was 9.33, and this includes two students who only missed four days. Four students missed ten or more class sessions (a third of our meetings). I've included one student who failed her last paper for plagiarism because she showed up off and on right up to the end. She had eight absences. The student with worst attendance missed 21 class meetings (out of 27).

At the three-day-a-week school, 9 got a D plus or worse. Leaving out the student who only missed one class session (but never turned in any work), the average number of absences for students receiving D plus or below was 12.25. Five students missed eleven or more class sessions.

It's interesting that the attendance percentages are about the same. At both schools, the A minus or better students attended about 95% of the time. At both schools, the D plus or worse students attended between 65% and 69% of the time. (It's also interesting that the grade scale shows 90% as the lowest score for an A- and 70% for a C-.)