samlet årgang - Økonomisk Institut - Københavns Universitet

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NATIONALØKONOMISK TIDSSKRIFT 2005. NR. 3
characteristics students should have will become even more important for the success
of particular university programs in attracting foreign students.
The present paper is one of the few that collects and analyses information about student
performance and their admission characteristics. In particular the paper investigates
the relation between students’ performance during studies and their characteristics
at the time of admission. We focus on the group of students who are enrolled in
the Bachelor of Science in International Business (B.Sc.IB) at Copenhagen Business
School (CBS); a program that for Denmark has a unique, admission procedure, which
allows an interesting analysis of the above issues.
The B.Sc.IB program has been accepting around 90 students every year since 1996.
These approximately 90 students are admitted through a 20% »quota-1«, i.e. based on
the high-school Grade Poient Average (GPA), and 80% »quota-2« system, i.e. based
on points that students collect through a number of activities that are not necessarily
linked to their high-school GPAs. In 1995 it was argued that this unique system was
necessary to ensure a 50% Danish/50% non-Danish student participation – a cornerstone
of the Program’s international orientation. Given this 20-80 rule, applicants who
apply directly from high-school compete for only 18 places. These few »quota-1« places
ensure that the admission GPAs have been as high as 10.1 on the Danish scale. 1 For
the rest of the 72 students, a point system that puts more weight on other things than
the GPA level is used. 2 In brief, while a GPA is rewarded by a maximum of 12 points,
living abroad is rewarded by a maximum of 12 points, extra-curricular activities are
rewarded by a maximum of 16 points, other education is rewarded by a maximum of
12 points, working experience abroad is rewarded by a maximum of 36 points, and finally
a motivational essay (which is carefully and independently read and evaluated by
two program managers) is rewarded by a maximum of 20 points. It is clear from the
above that the admission process of the quota-2 students exhibits a very strong bias
against GPAs and the qualifications they it represent. The question is whether such a
bias is well founded.
It is important to mention that the B.Sc. IB program is, judging by the demand for
the program a success story: the number of applications has been steadily increasing
every year, topping with 440 applications for the »quota-2« admission group in 2004
(a 20% growth from the previous year). From these 440 applications approximately
1. This high average admission GPA has been the highest among all university programs in Denmark for
several years now, with a considerable media attention, and thus with considerable positive externalities
(for 2004 see »Real Businessclass« Politiken, 05.09.2004, 6. section, p. 31). This high admission average
remained at the same level (10.1) when the Ministry of Education increased the quota-1 percentage to 40%
in the 2005/2006 academic year. Note that the Danish grading scale is the so-called »13-scale«, where the
following grades exist 0, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 and where the passing grade is 6.
2. See Appendix 1 for details for the admissions procedure. This procedure has changed as of the 2005/
2006 academic year.