Effect of High School Quality on Freshman Engineering Academic Prediction

The role ofquality ofhigh school as an addition to high school grades and aptitude test scores in the prediction of freshman engineering performance is discussed. High school quality is measured by the average drop in grade point average from high school to the University of California for previous classes at that high school. The predictor is shown to yield small, but statistically significant, increases in multiple correlation coefficients for an entire class, and is shown to be one of the most important predictors for certain subgroups of the class.