The Effect of Rank in Class and Size of High School on the Academic Achievement of Central Michigan College Seniors Class of 1957

Abstract

IT WAS the purpose of this study to attempt to I test the accuracy of the statement that coming from larger high schools,regardless of their rank in class, achieve better grades in college than do students from the smaller high schools who are in the upper thirty percent of their class. Studies dealing with rank in high school or size I of high school and their significance for college ad mission have been made as early as 1915. The con clusions reached by Pittenger were that in general the larger schools sent a slightly better grade of stu dent to college than did the smaller schools; but he continued by saying, u the superiority may or m ay not be due to the superiority of larger schools as college preparatory institutionswe may only con clude that the larger high school graduates may be expected to surpass the graduates of the sm a 11 e r schools. (5) Garrett, in a review of factors related to college success, said the conclusions which seemed to be justified were the following: 1. Size of high schools from which students graduated apparently had no effect on their college grades, although some studies showed a slight tend ency for students from smaller schools to receive somewhat lower averages. 2. High school scholarship showed a closer re lation to college scholarship than did any other fac tor with a correlation coeffficient of .56, but that rank in high school was close with a coefficient of . 55 (2) Goldthorpe concluded from a limited study of one hundred and thirty-six freshmen who entened Northwestern University from three Chicago and suburban schools that there appeared to be a sub stantial relationship between rank in high school and standing in the first two years of the University. (3) | Dwyer states that no one has established the ex istence of a relationship between the academic suc cess of students in college and size of high school which is definite enough to serve as a basis of indi vidual prediction. (1) Piersonfound a coefficient of correlation between college scholarship and high school scholarship of . 523; between college scholarship and intelligence . 429, and between college scholarship and charac ter rating of . 326. (4) Thornberg concluded from a study of classes entering the State College of Washington that students from large high schools were superior in scholarship, but that the difference was not so much a matter of native intelligence as a difference in preparatory training. (6) There appears to be no d i s a g r eement among writers that rank in class or scholarship are factors important to academic success in college, but size of high school as a predictor of success is still ques tioned.