Boards and Bogeys

Those undergraduates who once underwent the strain of "college boards" will undoubtedly be interested to hear that these examinations have been scrutinized by the Department of Personnel Study and grave doubts cast as to their efficacy. Albert B. Crawford, Director of the Department, comments on them in his recent report to the President, and points out that there is a remarkably low degree of correlation between college board examination grades and the records in Freshman year. He emphasizes the fact that predicted scores, or "bogeys", based on various school and entrance records, are really a more accurate method of determining college success than the college boards themselves.

The importance of efficient and accurate entrance examinations cannot be overemphasized. When a university is faced with the task of selecting some eight hundred students out of two or three thousand applicants, it must be certain that the methods by which these men are picked are an accurate measure of their ability and will correlate closely with their subsequent college records. The intellectual standard of the undergraduate body, and indirectly of the institution itself, is at stake. Therefore any improvement of the methods of selection, even though it changes entirely the traditional basis of selection, is to be welcomed. What was good enough for our grandfathers is emphatically not good enough for us if there is even a remote possibility of betterment.

It must be admitted, however, that the critical study of entrance methods is still in an embryonic stage. No clearcut substitute for college boards has been officially adopted, and perhaps the ultimate decision will be that college boards should stand for a while, but should be supplemented with other tests, and the net results taken as a basis for prediction. The scholastic aptitude test, while it is not without definite shortcomings, suggests a field of research which may prove fruitful in determining the student's abilities. Dr. Crawford is at present analyzing data obtained from one hundred and thirty such aptitude tests, and we await the result with interest.

The whole problem of admission to college is one in which educators are becoming more an more interested. Dr. C. C. Little, one-time dean of Harvard, in his recent book "The Awakening College," criticizes the inadequacy of the college board examinations to determine the emotional and temperamental set-up of the prospective college student. Now Dr. Crawford finds them inaccurate as a basis for prediction. It is to be hoped that such critical researches will continue and that out of them more accurate and efficient methods of selecting college students will evolve. The Yale Daily News.