Abstract:

In Spain, people aspiring to enter university must pass the test called Selectivity (S), whose value is obtained from an algorithm which considers the marks obtained in High School and a final exam that includes all subjects. The total must exceed 5 out of 10. There are two possibilities to enter university: having attended a High School (HS) or having completed training practical-professional studies (TP). Acceptance into a specific faculty depends on the difference between offer and demand of places to attend it (very different according to studies), and it is decided exclusively by means of S mark. Therefore, the higher demand, the higher cut-off.

We have studied the influence of the marks obtained in S on the results of freshman of Food Science Technology (FST; 10 matters) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, over four academic years. In general, the marks obtained in S do not predict success in freshman nor for students from HS neither from TP. Although the average scores of 7 of the 10 subjects are superior to those of HS taken globally, differences with respect to those coming from TP are not significant. The average notes are superior to 5 in all cases, and when ranked from the lower to the higher, deductive matters are the inferior group with respect to the descriptive ones, with the exceptions of Microbiology and Statistics. Chemistry and Microbiology stand out as subjects with the highest percentage of failures, but average percentages of whose decide not attend the exams are quite regular for all subjects. The average grades are quite similar among students coming from HS and from TP, and only are significantly different for Mathematics, but if we stick to students who fail the subjects or not attend to the examination, the percentages of them among all students are significantly are higher in those coming from TP. Therefore, the S grade is not a good global predictor of the success of freshman students of FST and only some correlations can be observed when split in convenient groups.

Keywords:

High School, Colleges success, Test university acceptance.