(Editors Note:This is the first part of a three-part series on grades from the fall 1997 semester.)

Fall 1997 grades indicate that as a student progresses from freshman to senior status their grades improve and administrators say this is a common occurrence.

John Jackson, provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, said the reason seniors do better is because of their familiarity with college life.

Advertisement

Basically, you expect seniors to make better grades than freshmen and the other two to fall in between, Jackson said. It makes sense because seniors have been here for five years. He or she has learned to study they’ve survived the rigors and demands of what it takes to be successful here and they’re just naturally going to make better grades than the freshman.

Twenty-one percent of freshman grades were As. Ten percent of the grades were Fs, and three percent received the new WF grade, which withdraws students from class and subsequently fails them.

Thirty-six percent of seniors received As while 3 percent failed.

Sophomores and juniors fell respectively between the two.

Jackson said it is not necessarily the quality of the students coming in but more of how well they adapt to a university setting.

We are a big and diverse and democratic institution, he said. We take the top half of what is coming out of Illinois high schools, and that’s pretty good in a lot of cases. It’s not so good in other cases.

People who need to learn how to study and need to learn to discipline themselves can get in the top half.

Advertisement*

Jackson said the current average ACT scores is 23, and the University should be able to teach students who have that competency.

He said many students do not understand the concept of a university when they enter.

I think it’s a lack of appreciation for the pretty serious gap between their senior year in high school and their first year at a university, he said. We just expect more. We don’t look at it as a 13th year we look at it as a whole different world with it’s own different culture and demands.

Jackson said it is a loss to the school when students cannot conquer the battle they have with grades and that the University is trying to retain more academically challenged students.

Walker Allen, director of Admissions and Records, said the chance of freshmen grades equaling senior grades is a great but unrealistic.

That would be wonderful, but I don’t think that will happen, Walker said. It is natural to expect that there would be a smaller percentage of freshmen receiving As.

Allen said it takes a while for students to mature and realize what is important for the years to come.

There’s a maturation function that would be a part of it, he said. As you go on, their goals get clearer and doing well is important to their future.

Students are reluctant to admit to themselves that they are not doing well. Unfortunately the students just don’t have the motivation.

Allen’s office deals with the retention of students. He said a commonly overlooked retention problem is students who leave SIUC leave for reasons other than failing.

When you look at students that leave, there are about an equal number of students that leave with a 2.75 GPA or higher and those that have low grades (below 2.0), he said. We tend to look at the ones with low grades and say that they are the retention problems.

Allen said students need to be more willing to subject themselves to the help of others to improve their academic career at SIUC.

They (students) get around exciting faculty members and students begin to hook into that, Allen said. I think that the tutoring services are what students must make themselves available to.

Jackson agrees with Allen and said students could even help each other.

(Peer tutoring) would be welcomed to the extent that you can learn from your peers in an informal system, Jackson said. It’s often some of the best kinds of learning.

Jackson said he stresses the importance of good professors as well, because of the level of understanding they must have in order to thoroughly teach a student.

In order to teach something you really have to understand it at a level that you may not quite appreciate it when you were just studying your notes and memorizing, he said. It’s to one’s advantage to work in study groups and to exchange ideas and to get projects together.

(The second part of this two part series will run Friday, and will focus on the differences in grades for all colleges)