--- title: Your Son's Kindergarten Behavior Could Keep Him from College description: A new study predicts that the gap between boys' and girls' grades in elementary school means fewer male college graduates canonical: https://time.com/85795/your-sons-behavior-in-kindergarten-could-bar-him-from-college/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-02T18:20:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:55:13.577Z og:title: Your Son's Kindergarten Behavior Could Keep Him from College og:description: A new study predicts that the gap between boys' and girls' grades in elementary school means fewer male college graduates og:url: https://time.com/85795/your-sons-behavior-in-kindergarten-could-bar-him-from-college/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdeba3f13e9b94a25/69868d97cd68481d1b094737/186856585.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5316 og:image:height: 2990 og:image:alt: 186856585 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Your Son's Kindergarten Behavior Could Keep Him from College twitter:description: A new study predicts that the gap between boys' and girls' grades in elementary school means fewer male college graduates twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdeba3f13e9b94a25/69868d97cd68481d1b094737/186856585.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Your Son's Behavior in Kindergarten Could Keep Him from College > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters.  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent May 2, 2014 6:20 PM UTC  Preschool: Teacher Telling A Story to children. Preschool: Teacher Telling A Story to children. Miodrag Gajic—Vetta/Getty Images  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent May 2, 2014 6:20 PM UTC Your child’s achievement in kindergarten is a strong predictor of whether he or she will attend college, according to a [new paper](http://www.thirdway.org/publications/813) called “The Secret Behind College Completion” by Third Way, a Washington research group. And that’s bad news for boys, who consistently underperform compared to girls throughout elementary school. The social and behavioral gap between boys and girls begins as early as kindergarten. Girls are more attentive, persistent, eager to learn, flexible, organized, sensitive and opinionated than boys in kindergarten. The gender gap in behavioral skills at that tender age is [even bigger than racial or socio-economic gaps](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/upshot/a-link-between-fidgety-boys-and-a-sputtering-economy.html?%5Fr=0): Boys score an average of 42 percent on a behavioral skills, while girls score an average of 58 percent—a 16 point differential. That’s larger than the 13 point differential between poor and not poor, and the 13 point differential between black and white. So by the time boys and girls reach middle school, girls have attained an academic advantage over the boys. By the eighth grade, 48 percent of girls receive a combination of As and Bs or better on their report cards, while only 31 percent of boys do. That’s a big gap considering eighth grade grades are a better predictor of college completion than standardized test scores. Students who earn mostly As have almost a 70 precent chance of completing college by 25; those who earn mostly Bs have just a 30 percent chance of completing college, and less than 10 percent of students who earn mostly Cs will graduate college by that age. The reasons for the grade gender gap are still, for the most part, a mystery. There’s a behavioral deficit for boys before they even enter school. But the authors of the study also point out that boys are more negatively affected than girls by classrooms with a bad or distracting environment. Boys also feel pressure to adhere to old stereotypes that dictate that academic achievement isn’t cool. 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