Prediction of college performance in older students

Asked 543 middle-aged undergraduates (over 35 yrs old), entering or returning to a university, to take a precollege aptitude test battery (Washington Pre-College Test). Of these students, 100 women and 53 men volunteered to take the test but did not differ on any of 9 comparisons from middle-aged nonvolunteers. Compared to university freshmen, median scores for older students were above the 75th percentile for freshmen on vocabulary and spelling and below the 25th freshman percentile on quantitative tests. On the other tests, they were not significantly different from younger students of the same sex. Predicting grades in humanities, social science, natural science, and business, as well as cumulative grades and rate of progress, was best accomplished through multiple prediction using background factors in addition to test scores. (17 ref)