More stringent grading is a reason for one of the more interesting findings in the survey. Despite the fact that the size of the department has decreased in the past four years, and much of the dilletante element has dropped out, the overall level of marks has not changed.

But even more than the more difficult grading, Kahl discovered another factor that has kept the grades constant as the department has decreased in size.

After ranking the students by categories according to background to discover what type of men do the best work, Kahl found that although there were proportionally more people in the better categories now than in '48, and although the relative ranking of these categories had not changed since '48, there seemed to be a tendency for each group as a whole to do poorer work than those of four years ago.

He found that Jewish students got the best grades, and were followed by Protestants and Catholics from public high-schools, non-final club men from private schools, and final club members. While there are proportionally more people in the first two categories than in '48, Kahl feels they are getting lower grades than their predecessors. Because of the increase in the relative size of the upper groups, however, the grade level, rather than decreasing, has remained the same.

Those who get the highest grades are men who have already chosen their profession and are in the partment because they feel it will help them in their future careers. Two hundred sixty-three, or 73 percent of the concentrators intend to go on to some professional training.

Graduate Schools

After breaking these men down by intended occupations, Kahl discovered that 18 percent of the concentrators wanted to get into business school, 8 percent were future lawyers, 13 percent were applying to medical school, and 17 percent intended to go on with social relations. Another 17 percent signified they wanted to go to some graduate school, but were not yet sure of their choice.

One of the most significant findings of the report was that the students in Social Relations represented almost a complete cross-section of the college population.

In addition to the 47-53 percent ratio of private to public school graduates, the students were representative of the college population as far as family income and father's occupations were concerned. One-fifth of the student's fathers were Harvard graduates, which is also the college average, but only 1 percent were sons of Princeton or Yale men.

A major part of the study was concerned with finding out what the students thought of the department as a whole and what courses they considered to be the best and the worst.

"Students approved of the fact that the department represented a serious attempt to look at social life from a variety of perspectives Kahl said, "and they could understand the value of having the approaches of several professors.

He went on to say that the better students exhibited a sense of satisfaction in helping to work out solutions to these complex social problems.

"But some students feel that this approach is a confusing one, that there are too many unintegrated conceptual schemes to be grasped."

Kahl says that the department realizes this problem and the student's comments bore out ideas that members of the Faculty have held for some time. A faculty committee is already set up to do away with the overlapping prevalent in several courses.

Notion Destroyed

The study also destroyed the notion that there is any best or worst professor or course.

"Students like professors who approach the world the way they do," Kahl says.

"For instance, many men said la is the best course and many others called it the worst, but we found that the former were mainly interested in individual psychology and liked the course for its content in addition to its professor. The overwhelming percentage of those who disliked is and who felt 1b to be the finest course the department offered were majoring in Sociology."

In a situation like this, Kahl continues, it is necessary to take into consideration not only the personality of the professors, but the interest of the students in the content of the course, and the personality of the students themselves.

When the final report was presented to the department last week, the faculty said that it would be useful to their discussions of policy. Although Kahl states that a department can not do everything according to what the students desire, the findings will definitely be utilized in working for future improvements in the field.