Miles Pickering Columbia Unlversiiy New York, New Y w k 10027
I The High Risk Freshman
I
Chemist Revisited
Three years ago we reported' an experiment in remediation in this Journal in which a one semester supplementary course was used to assist "high risk" (math SAT < 630) freshmen. These students took hoth the supplementary course and the standard freshman lecture course taken by most freshmen, and their grades were based solely on this latter course. This arrangement lends itself to a controlled experiment. I t was shown in the previous article that the group taking the supplementary course ("the experimental group") did better than a control group selected from the students of the previous year but matched for math SAT. The present article reports the longer term comparison of these two groups. Does a student taking the supplementary course acquire a long tern immunity to failure? Does he have an improved chance for medical school admission? Where and how is the influence of the course felt in subsequent courses? Evaluation Procedure
Transcripts were obtained for all students in both groups. Students who had received an F in the supplementary course, who had dropped chemistry the first semester, or who had repeated chemistry were not considered during the statistical analysis. This gave two groups who were basically matched, with mean math SAT being 559 for the control and 570 for the experimental group. The transcripts contained three years' work for the experimental group and four years' work for the control. Results
The basic demographic information is listed in Tahle 1. I t is noteworthy that there is an actual decline in the number of premeds in the experimental group, and a corresponding decrease in the number tackling organic chemistry or any other science course. I t is also interesting that the number of D's and F's received somewhere in one of the premed sciences was virtually the same for both groups. The fraction achieving the "magic" GPA of 3.00 in all science courses, a rough indicator of admission probability to medical school, was identical for hoth groups. If, however, the data is broken down considering the performance in freshman chemistry, a number of possibly significant facts emerge. Tahle 2 divides both the controlgroup and experimental group into those who scored above the mean in the mainstream chemistry lecture and those who scored below the mean. The students of the experimental group who dropped out of the premed program are overwhelmingly those in the lower half of the class. This is in accordance with the hypothesis that probability of medical school admission was the governing factors in the drops. The same proportion of people dropped out of Columbia University, but in the experimental group, they were roughly equally scattered hetween the upper and lower halves of the chemistry class, although in the control group all those who dropped did poorly in chemistry. Presumably the factors causing drops are not associated with freshman chemistry. It is also interesting that of those students who were eventually to achieve a 3.00 science GPA, the experimental group all did reasonably well in freshman chemistry lecture, hut the control group contained a numher of "late bloomers." 'Pickering, M., J. CHEM. EDUC.,52,512 (1975).
Table 1. Population Characteristics Control
Fraction of students still reported premed Fraction dropping out of Columbia Fraction never taking any science after rhemi
