Success or Failure in Earning Graduate Degrees

Personal interviews were conducted in 1951 with a random sample of graduate students during their first semester of enrollment in their departments in a large, major university. The interviews oovered four broad types of factors which are often alleged to contribute to 8tudent success or failure. It was hypothesized that students possessing certain characteristics of academic and personal background (endowment), motivation, accommodation to graduate school, and non-academic statuses would be more likely to sucoeed than others. Subsequently, it was determined whether or not each student was successful in earning the graduate degree to which he initially aspired within eleven, years (i.e., by June, 1962). In general, fewi of the 63 variables 8tuMdied proved to be associated with success or failure in earning the M.A. or Ph.D. Neither academio endowment nor motivation were indicative of future suocess. There is weak but nevertheless suggestive evidence of a relation between accommodation (social adjustment and integration into the graduate school community) and subsequent suooess or failure. Age is a major non-academic status inversely related to success.