RE: Survey on prerequisites vs. DWF rate [HAPP-L]

I agree. The data that I am familiar with indicates that failure/drop-out rates correspond more closely to ACT/SAT scores than to geographical data. GPA is variable due to the presence of grade inflation in some school districts. I have seen students with 3.8 GPA's and a 20 composite ACT score (after their second or third try) while I have also seen students with 2.8 GPA's and a 30 composite ACT (after their first try). In our program (pharmacy) we have data collected over the past 3 years that indicate that an ACT composite score below 24 indicates that the student will fail or drop-out within the first two years of the program (6 year PharmD curriculum). High School GPA (and even junior college GPA for transfer students) is less accurate in predicting success at St Louis College of Pharmacy (most likely due to the grade inflation phenomenon). However high school GPA has been reported to be a good predictor of success at other colleges and universities, so we have now placed more emphasis on Math/Science GPA and Math/Science ACT score. Only one student in the past 3 years with a Math/Science ACT score below 24 has advanced to the third year (first professional year) of the curriculum. We usually lose around 30-40% of our students (admitted as freshmen) by year 3. From what I have read, other colleges/universities have reported a similar correlation between ACT/SAT scores of incoming freshmen and graduation rates. An ACT of 21 or below is not very good and usually results in a student not completing their degree. The national average ACT score is 20.8 (21). A breakdown of ACT composite scores by state can be found at http://www.act.org/news/data/03/states.html. As you can see they are all clustered around the 19-22 range. Therefore I don't believe that state/country data is really necessary for our purposes.

D. Ford

St Louis College of Pharmacy

-----Original Message-----
From: HAPP-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:HAPP-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Weck, Margaret
Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 8:34 AM
To: HAPP-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: Survey on prerequisites vs. DWF rate [HAPP-L]

Different states have different entrance requirements for their 2 and 4 year institutions. Some states require that all state schools admit anyone (even to the 4-yr schools and professional programs) with a valid high school diploma from that state, while other states have ACT and GPA admissions requirements for some state schools and not others. One would presume that the fail and drop-out rates might be correlated to the admissions criteria in some way. So maybe the admissions criteria would be the more pertinant data, rather than just the State.

Margaret W.

and -----Original Message-----
From: HAPP-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:HAPP-L-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Ken Saladin
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 9:49 PM
To: HAPP-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Survey on prerequisites vs. DWF rate [HAPP-L]

CARL: I would suggest that "State" and "Country" be a mandatory entry.

Why? Are we intending to analyze differences between the U.S. and Canada? Or differences from one state to another? Unless we have a clearly preconceived use for certain data or comparisons, or a hypothesis in mind that requires information on the state or country, I don't see what the purpose of this information would be. I don't want to collect data just for the sake of data, but only data that would be directly relevant to some sort of hypothesis testing. That said, however, I will tabulate whatever it is the consensus of the listserv members to collect.