Graduate Degree Aspirations of Ethnic Student Groups

The degree objectives of prospective graduate students from eight ethnic groups were investigated using the extensive (200,000 plus) Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) registrant population of 1976–1977. GRE scores, undergraduate grade point average (GPA), and being a male were the important predictors of students’ expectations of obtaining a doctor’s rather than a master’s degree, and this was generally true for each of the ethnic groups. Characteristics of undergraduate institutions such as affluence, selectivity, and the predominant racial make-up, generally had little influence. Black and Hispanic/Indian students had higher degree aspirations than white or Asian-American students with similar characteristics. However, there is a marked similarity among the ethnic groups in the percentages planning to obtain a doctorate at the various GRE percentiles for their group. This suggests that each group acts as a particular frame of reference for students within it. For each of the major field areas (humanities, natural sciences, social sciences), the variables available for this study did not highly predict which students expected to obtain the higher degree (multiple R’s in the .30s).