These figures of course indicate the same facts as those derived from the previous methods of expressing the data. The high school (H. S.) average correlates throughout with the college ranking, the correspondence becoming less apparent in the later college years. Similarly, the good students in the first high school year are the good ones all through the high school course, and the able college freshmen are able as sophomores, juniors and seniors. But both in high school and in college the significance of early standing becomes less and less as the years progress.

A. L. Jones[13] compared college entrance examinations with work done later in the college course, in the freshman and sophomore years. Two hundred men from the entering classes of 1907, 1911 and 1912, in Columbia College, were selected for study. These men were arranged in four groups, fifty in each group, on the basis of (a) their marks in entrance examinations, (b) their college marks in the first and second college years. Group I contains the best fifty individuals, Group II the fifty next best, etc. The following compiled table shows where the members of each group in entrance examinations stood in their college work:

TABLE 16

Showing Relations between Entrance Records and College Standing (Jones)

See Text for Explanation

On Basis of Freshman Ranking
On Basis of Entrance Examinations Group I Group IIGroup III Group IV
Group I (50 men) 30 13 5 2
Group II (50 men) 16 17 12 5
Group III (50 men) 3 13 16 18
Group IV (50 men) 1 7 17 25
On Basis of Entrance Examinations On Basis of Sophomore Ranking
Group I (13 men) 7 4 2 0
Group II (13 men) 4 5 2 2
Group III (13 men) 2 4 3 4
Group IV (14 men) 0 0 6 8

It appears from this table that there is a fairly well-marked tendency for the men to remain in the group in which they start. At least the larger number of men are found in college in about the same group in which they occurred on the basis of entrance examinations. Jones writes, "It is evident from an examination of these... data that entrance examinations, aside from other important uses claimed for them by their advocates, may fitly be taken as an important indication of the future career of the candidate for admission. They should of course be supplemented, and so should any other means of determining preparation for college. Those who have studied the question tell us that there is a high degree of correlation between intellectual qualities and others. A good test of intellectual fitness is, therefore, in some degree a test of other qualities also. Entrance examinations have their imperfections but there can be no doubt that they may serve as a solid foundation on which to build."

Thorndike, on the other hand, in studying the relation between entrance marks and later college standing (Columbia College classes entering in 1901, 1902 and 1903), finds results which lead him to say, "The important facts concerning the relationship of success in entrance examinations to success in college work... prove that we cannot estimate the latter from the former with enough accuracy to make the entrance examinations worth taking or to prevent gross and intolerable injustice being done to many individuals.... The records of eleven entrance examinations give a less accurate prophecy of what a student will do in the latter half of his college course than does the college record of his brother! The correlation between brothers in intellectual ability is approximately .40, but that between standing in entrance examinations and standing in college of the same person is only .47 for junior year (130 cases) and .25 for senior year (56 cases).... From many facts such as these... it is certain that the traditional entrance examinations, even when as fully safeguarded as in the case of those given by the College Entrance Examination Board, do not prevent incompetence from getting into college; do not prevent students of excellent promise from being discouraged or barred out altogether; do not measure fitness for college well enough to earn the respect of students or teachers; and do intolerable injustice to individuals."

The apparent striking contradiction between these two reports is not, however, so serious when it is noted that the records of Jones were taken from freshman and sophomore years, while Thorndike's, as here quoted, were taken from junior and senior years. Thorndike has also presented, in another connection, comparisons of entrance examinations with the work of freshman and sophomore years, and in these cases his correlations are considerably higher, more nearly approximating the results of Jones. The correlations, for the four college years, were as follows: freshman year, .62; sophomore year, .50; junior year, .47; senior year, .25.