Forecasting Undergraduate Majors Using Academic Transcript Data

Committing to a major is a fateful step in an undergraduate education, yet the relationship between courses taken early in an academic career and ultimate major selection remains little studied at scale. Using transcript data capturing the academic careers of 26,892 undergraduates enrolled at a private university between 2000 and 2020, we describe enrollment histories using natural-language methods and vector embeddings to forecast terminal major on the basis of course sequences beginning at college entry. We find (I) a student's very first enrolled course predicts major thirty times better than random guessing and more than a third better than majority-class voting, (II) modeling strategies substantially influence forecasting accuracy, and (III) course portfolios varies substantially within majors, raising novel questions what majors mean or signify in relation to undergraduate course histories.

Development of medical aptitude amongst fresh medical entrants by way of relevant teaching learning sessions:a cross sectional pre-post study

Background: Medical Science is still one of the most sought after professions. The possession of an aptitude for the profession is a pre requisite, considering its strenuous demands from the candidate. Presently, there is no mechanism in place in India to assess aptitude in students prior to medical college entry. The aims and objectives of the study were to assess the baseline medical aptitude in the new medical entrants, to Introduce Teaching Learning Sessions for Development of Medical Aptitude in new Medical Entrants, to assess the post T/L session medical aptitude in the new medical entrants.Methods: A cross sectional, one group pre- post study was undertaken amongst 150 fresh MBBS students of Adesh Medical College and Hospital, Shahabad, after approval from the IEC. A pre-tested and pre-validated semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection both at baseline and after relevant Teaching learning sessions. Data collected was analyzed by using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) Version 21.Results: The overall mean aptitude value before and after the T/L session was 102.98±8.47 and 114.51±8.60 respectively (p<0.001). Also, there was increase in the proportion of students having average and above average aptitude and decline in those having below average aptitude in the post T/L sessions as compared to the baseline levels.Conclusions: It can be concluded that medical aptitude can be built up in the new medical entrants by making them aware about it through well crafted teaching learning sessions.

Research entry requirements into Australian and New Zealand Medical Specialist Training programs – an under-recognised driver of research waste

Doctors are placed under significant pressure to do research for career progression. Our review suggests that specialty training college entry requirements incentivise research to gain entry and focus on volume and authorship position over research quality. These requirements may be unintended drivers of research waste.

THE LONG-TERM IMPACT OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND REPRESSION ON DEMOCRATIC ATTITUDES

Democracy movements in authoritarian regimes usually fail and are repressed, but they may still affect attitudes and norms of participants and bystanders. We exploit several features of a student movement to test for enduring effects of social movements on democratic attitudes. College students were the core of the movement and had wide exposure to the ideas and activities of the movement, as well as the suppression of the movement. College-bound high school students had limited exposure to the movement and its activities. Time of college entry could in theory be manipulated and endogenous, so we also use birthdate as an exogenous instrument for enrollment year. Applying a fuzzy regression discontinuity, we test for the impact of exposure to the movement on long-term attitudes. We find significant attitudinal differences between those in college during the movement, and those who started college post-movement. These results are strongest for alumni of the four universities that were most connected to the movement.

Washington's College Bound Scholarship Program and its Effect on College Entry, Persistence, and Completion

Indiana, Oklahoma, and Washington have programs designed to address college enrollment and completion gaps by offering a promise of state-based college financial aid to lowincome middle school students in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen, not be convicted of a felony, and apply for financial aid to college. Using a tripledifference specification, we find that Washington's College Bound Scholarship shifted enrollment from out-of-state to in-state colleges at which the scholarship could be used. While we find suggestive evidence that the program increased the likelihood of attending a postsecondary institution and attaining a bachelor's degree within five years of high school, we discuss why the program might be more successful if it did not require students to sign a pledge.

The impact of penalties for wrong answers on the gender gap in test scores

Multiple-choice examinations play a critical role in university admissions across the world. A key question is whether imposing penalties for wrong answers on these examinations deters guessing from women more than men, disadvantaging female test-takers. We consider data from a large-scale, high-stakes policy change that removed penalties for wrong answers on the national college entry examination in Chile. The policy change reduced a large gender gap in questions skipped. It also narrowed gender gaps in performance, primarily among high-performing test-takers, and in the fields of math, social science, and chemistry.

Late-Stage Educational Inequality: Can Selection on Noncognitive Skills Explain Waning Social Background Effects?

Past research finds that the effect of socioeconomic origin on the probability of making educational transitions decreases for successively higher educational transitions, suggesting for example that one’s family of origin matters less for college entry than it does for high school completion. This pattern of waning effects could well be the result of selective attrition, since those of modest social origins who make a given transition may have unobserved characteristics, such as cognitive or noncognitive skills, that help them make the next transition, while better off individuals may be less steeply selected on these characteristics. I study a sample of American 10th graders from 1980 to assess how much the pattern of waning effects is due to selective attrition along academic and noncognitive skills for this cohort. I find that controlling for academic skills makes the effect of socioeconomic status more stable across transitions, but controlling for noncognitive skills does not. Socioeconomic advantage does not decline uniformly across transitions, and it appears most pronounced at the transition into college. These results do not support a claim that late transitions are egalitarian.