GPA and Birth Month Correlation

Abstract

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he posits that there are people who do not follow the typical trends found in data, and named people outliers. Students with birth dates closer to school age cutoffs are more mature than their later birth order peers but do their GPAs prove this trend to be true? It does not help that some outliers do not follow the typical patterns causing discrepancies in data. This led to the answering of whether students born closer to the age cutoff have higher GPAs, while students born further from the age cutoff have lower GPAs. This was ultimately tested through a statistical correlational analysis where the information was gathered from High School students in Los Angeles. In addition to birth order, there are additional factors that play into a person's chance of success academically. Birth dates closest to the age cutoff result in higher GPAs while being born further from the age cutoff results in lower GPAs. Despite these findings, there are other factors such as birth order, and the amount of time spent studying that can impact a student's chances of academic success.