Predicting Design Student Success Across the Design Disciplines: A Look at Architecture, Graphic Design, Interior Design, And Landscape Architecture

The main focus of this paper is to answer the question, ‘what measures are the best in predicting a student’s success in college.’ In particular, this paper addresses a student who is interested in one of the design disciplines (architecture, graphic design, interior design, or landscape architecture) within a College of Design at a university in the United States. Data from four predictor domains in college admissions (Camara, 2005), were collected and analyzed, including: 1) cognitive measures (ACT, High School GPA and Rank), 2) non-cognitive scales that include personality and motivation scales (the Big Five Personality Test, and Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices), 3) personal qualities found in portfolios and essays, and 4) other factors, such as high school characteristics (location of high school) and legacy/alumni parental relation to applicant. The success measure, or criterion variable, used in this study was a student’s cumulative GPA.