842 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 596. 



70 in entrance examinations, one ranked 15 in 

 the college work of senior year, one 16, four 18, 

 one 19, one 21, one 22 and one 27. 



The values 60, 61, 62, etc., up to 95 of the hori- 

 zontal scale are directly obtained from the en- 

 trance marks which are given on the ordinary 

 scale of from 100 down. The values 4, 5, 6 up to 

 30 of the vertical scale are obtained from the 

 collige records of A, B, C, D and F by taking 

 A=6, B = 4, C = 3, D=l and F=0. Thus 

 30 = five A's, 28 = four A's and one B, 27 =: four 

 A's and one C, 26 ^= three A's and two B's, 25 = 

 three A's, one B and one C, or four A's and one 

 D, etc. 



Six students out of the 130 received the 

 same average entrance piark, 61. In their 

 college work of junior year one averaged a 

 trifle above D, one half way from D to C, 

 one a little above C, and two received A 

 in four subjects out of five and B in the 

 other. In freshman and sophomore year 

 the range was nearly as great. 



Eleven students of the 130 received in 

 the entrance examinations marks averaging 

 70 in each case. In their college work of 

 junior year they averaged all the way from 

 D to A. 



Of the students who were in the lower 

 half of the group in the entrance exam- 

 inations nearly forty per cent, are found 

 in the upper half in the last three years 

 of college. 



Of the dozen students who ranked high- 

 est in entrance, some were in the lowest 

 fifth of the class by junior year. 



If, knowing that 50 individuals ranked 

 in the order Jones, Smith, Brown, etc., in 

 their entrance marks, one were to wager 

 that in the college work of, say, junior 

 year, they would rank Jones, Smith, 

 Brown, etc., as before, he would lose his 

 bet in 47 cases out of the 50. 



The record of eleven or more entrance 

 examinations gives a less accurate prophecy 

 of what a student will do in the latter half 

 of his college course than does the college 

 record of his brother! The correlation 

 between brothers in intellectual ability is 



approximately .40, but that between stand- 

 ing in entrance examinations and standing 

 in college is only .47 for junior year and. 

 .25 for senior year. 



The lack of perfect correlation between 

 standing in entrance examinations and 

 standing in, say, junior year of college is 

 presumably due to several causes. First, 

 the relative standing of a boy among his 

 fellows in any mental capacity or combina- 

 tion of capacities varies from year to year. 

 That is, the correlation between John's 

 condition in 1900 and John's condition in 

 1903 is not perfect. In the second place, 

 the standing in entrance does not even os- 

 tensibly measure the same capacities as 

 does his standing in junior year. This 

 accounts for part of the lack of correlation 

 because there is a general departure from 

 perfect correlation amongst different ca- 

 pacities in the same individual, for in- 

 stance between mathematics and the rhe- 

 torical gifts. In the third place, the en- 

 trance record is not a perfect measure of 

 the capacities it ostensibly measures. 

 Hence the relation of the two facts, en- 

 trance mark and college mark, is not so 

 close as the relation between entrance abil- 

 ity and college ability would be. 



This analysis is of no significance so far 

 as concerns the adeqiiacy of the entrance 

 examinations as a test of fitness for college, 

 but it is important when such facts as those 

 presented here are used in reasoning about 

 the general problems of individual and 

 genetic psychology. 



It is possible from the data to answer 

 the question, "Of the examinations in the 

 different entrance subjects, which is most 

 prophetic of an individual's success in col- 

 lege work?" The author hopes to make 

 the necessary calculations when he has 150 

 or more records complete through senior 

 year. A rough treatment of the facts in 

 the case of English, Latin, mathematics 

 and science shows no impressive differ- 



