Review of Did they succeed in college? A Follow-up Study of the Graduates of the Thirty Schools

Abstract

Reviews the book, Did they succeed in college? A Follow-up Study of the Graduates of the Thirty Schools by Dean Chamberlin, Enid Chamberlin, Neal E. Drought, and William E. Scott (1942). The reviewer states that this investigation concerns the successful adjustments in college of a large number of graduates of the thirty high schools participating in the well-known eight-year study of secondary education. The high schools, it will be remembered, were freed, by agreement with colleges, from requiring that students enroll in the traditionally required college preparatory subjects. This experiment is, therefore, a test of whether students can succeed without the traditional preparatory subjects, having studied the then-called "progressive" subjects. The colleges involved in the study include almost all types and the curricula chosen by the students covered almost the full range available to them. A "comparison" group of control students enrolled in the same colleges were selected and "matched" with respect to comparable scholastic aptitude scores, sex, race, age, religious affiliation, size and type of secondary school, home community, socio-economic status of family, extra-curricular activities in high school, vocational objective and other such factors. These and other data were collected from the colleges' admissions forms and directly from the students themselves. The reviewer states that this experiment is a classic one, although, for the most part, college faculties and directors of admissions have not rushed to reform their entrance requirements. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)