ADMISSIONS AND DISMISSALS

Weeding men out in the Law School according to enrollment figures made public this morning is a rapid process. During the last six years Law School classes have lost an average of thirty six percent of their membership during the first year. That the selective means employed have been discriminating as well as swift is witnessed by the fact that second year mortality has averaged less than ten percent.

To college which are embarrassed by the necessity of sorting out the increasing number of applicants for admission the Law School practice suggests a sound direction of policy.

Experimentation with admissions requirements designed to test the applicants' fitness for college as well as his secondary school training has been indulged in by various colleges during the last few years. No psychological or mental aptitude test yet involved however has proved entirely convincing to colleges like Harvard which have clung to the older admissions criteria.

But the margin of error in such standards as college board marks and secondary school grades becomes increasingly wide as the proportion of applicants for admission accepted by colleges diminishes. The chances that the student who averages seventy percent in his entrance examinations will have greater capacity for college work than the student who averages sixty five by no means amount to certainty. Still less can a sure distinction be made between the eighty and seventy five man.

Actual work in college is undoubtedly the best test of a student's qualification to remain there. Insofar as their physical limitations will permit colleges would do well permit colleges would do well to follow the Law School in establishing admissions standards within rather than at the beginning of the Freshman year.