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A Study of Undergraduate Records of Graduates from Hunter College Who Later Earned Doctorates

1960; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 29; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00220973.1960.11010668

1940-0683

Edith B. Chase,

Research, Science, and Academia

IN THE FALL of 1957, the Office of Scientific Personnel of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council sent to each college a list of its graduates who had been a warded the doctorate by other institutions between the years 1936 and 1956. With this list were giv en for each individual the date of the baccalaure ate and the field and date of the doctoral degree. This information seemed to offer an excellent op portunity to ascertain for acomplete group of students who came from a single undergraduate body and who later earned the doctorate, the de gree to which the quality of undergraduate work indicated potential doctoral material, and to de termine any differences between the records of prospective graduate students in different disci plines. Of the 304 names on the list, ten were omitted for various reasons. Of the individuals included in this study, all but 13 were women, for, until veterans were admitted in 1946, male students were limited to a very small number in the even ing session. From the undergraduate record of each student named in the list, the following data were obtained: Cumulative index (each credit of A counting 4 points, B three points, C two points, D one point, and F no points); Index of f i r s t se mester; Index of courses in the field of the future doctorate or of the major, if related to the doc torate (i. e., Chemistry major for doctor ate in Biochemistry); High school average (where re| corded); Honors (Junior Phi Beta Kappa, Senior Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude, magna cum j laude, and cum laude); Country of birth of student and parents where recorded. The students at this college differed in some respects from students in most other colleges, since they attended a free tuition non-residential college in the city of New York. That recent im migrants to this country took advantage of the op portunity for a free education for their children is indicated by the following facts. Of 2 7 0stu dents for whom the country of birth was recorded, 42, or 16%, were foreign born . Of 114 students entering between 1923 and 1939 when the birthplace of the parents was recorded, it was found that both the parents of 63, or 55%, were foreign born, one of the parents of 20 students, or 18%, was foreign born; while 31 students, or 27%, had both parents native born. Since it seemed desirable to obtain some indi cation of the way in which the records of the stu dents who subsequently earned the doctorate com pared with records of all the students for the same period, a random sample of 294 of the latter was chosen. To offset any changes in grading standards over this period of years, the same number of individuals was picked from each graduating class as was included in the original list. The re cords were chosen by applying numbers from a list of random figures (2) to the numbered alphabetized list of graduates for each semester. The data taken from each record included in the random I sample were limited to the cumulative index, the index of the first term, and honors.