A retrospective study of the quantitative and qualitative variables that were the best predictors of successful completion of a bachelor's degree in physical therapy supports continued use of qualitative measures such as interviews and does not support certain traditional quantitative variables. (MSE)

A study of applicants, matriculating students, and transfer students of the University of Adelaide (Australia) Faculty of Law examines applicant and student characteristics and performance in specific law school courses. Other factors such as performance in elective subjects, sex differences, withdrawal from school, and socioeducational background…

Rural background and specialty choice of family medicine are each significant predictors of practice in a nonmetropolitan area. The utilization of the medical school selection process to address the maldistribution problem is examined, and a predictive model is described. (MLW)

A study of the reliability of Australia's standardized Higher School Certificate as a predictor of freshman performance found it to be biased with respect to the type of secondary school attended, but not the father's occupational status or the student's country of birth. (MSE)

A statistical analysis of the predictive potential of academic and nonacademic student characteristics in an architecture school provides a model for other institutions to make their admissions processes and programs for retention more effective. The study was of 10 freshman architecture classes at the University of Kansas. (MSE)

A study investigated the predictive capacity of (1) the scores on Australian standardized tests, taken on leaving high school and used as medical school entrance criterion, (2) academic subjects taken in the last year of secondary school, (3) gender, and (4) public vs. private schooling. Subjects and test scores correlated with performance. (MSE)

The authors investigated whether undergraduates' scores on the Verbal and Quantitative tests of the Graduate Record Examinations and their undergraduate grade point average can be used to predict knowledge, personal development, and skills of graduates of counseling programs. Multiple regression analysis produced significant models predicting…

A study was conducted at Miami-Dade Community Colleges (MDCC) to investigate whether a combination of freshman and sophomore grades and student scores on the College Level Academic Skills Test (CLAST) would be a better predictor of student academic success at the four-year level than CLAST scores alone. Since there were insufficient data to…

Applicants to Johnson County Community College's nursing and dental hygiene programs are expected to have demonstrated ability in the fields of science and communications, either through high school or college grades or scores on standardized tests. This document relates these various predictor variables to three criteria of success: (1)…

A study of the predictive capacity of the medical school admission interview, based on first-year performance, suggests that elimination of the interview did not adverse the medical school's ability to recruit a diverse and academically successful student body. (MSE)

Efforts to improve the reliability or prediction in dental school admissions by combining several preprofessional academic averages and selected nongraded personal attributes into a single admission index score are outlined. Use of the index is also proposed for use in monitoring less-qualified students' progress. (Author/MSE)

A study of 20 graduate medical students who received unfavorable evaluations and 20 who received the highest evaluations found little difference between the groups in medical school admission qualifications, overall academic achievement, or standardized test performance. Ratings appear to be the result of personal or motivational issues, not…

A follow-up study of 148 medical school graduates investigated the predictive value of medical college admissions data for choice of a generalist career (family practice, general internal medicine, general pediatrics). Factors indicating a high orientation toward community service before medical school were found predictive of generalist choices.…

Reports two studies hypothesizing that nonintellectual learning dispositions are as important as intellectual assets in predicting college student success. One study was conducted with 298 low-risk francophone students in Canada; the second involved 179 academically at-risk students in the United States. Implications of the results for selection,…

In 2001, Dr. Jordan Cohen, President of the AAMC, called for medical schools to consider using an Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) threshold to eliminate high-risk applicants from consideration and then to use non-academic qualifications for further consideration. This approach would seem to be consistent with the recent Supreme Court ruling…