| Summary: | Students may need
to decide whether to invest limited resources evenly across all courses and
thus end with moderate grades in all, or focus on some of the courses and thus
end with variable grades. This study examined which pattern of grades is
perceived more favorably. When judging competency, people give more weight to
positive than negative information, in which case heterogeneous grades would be
perceived more favorably as they have more positive grades than homogeneous
moderate grades. Furthermore, high school students are told to demonstrate
their passion in college applications. Nonetheless, people generally overweigh
negative information, which can result in a preference for a student with
homogeneous grades lacking extremely negative grades. The college admissions
decisions in particular may also involve emphasis on long-term stable,
consistent, and responsible character, which the homogeneous grades may imply.
Study 1 found that laypeople, undergraduate students, and admissions officers
preferred to admit a student with homogeneous grades to a college than a
student with heterogeneous grades even when their GPAs were the same. Study 2
used a heterogeneous transcript signaling a stereotypic STEM or humanities
student, and found that while undergraduate students were more split in their
choices, laypeople and admissions officers still preferred a student with
homogeneous grades. Study 3 further replicated the preference for a student
with homogeneous grades by using higher or lower average GPAs and wider or
narrower range of grades for the heterogeneous grades. Possible reasons and
limitations of the studies are discussed.
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