Youth

Newsweek - Having the last name Atkins rather than Williams might mean you get better grades, according to new research. Students with surnames that start with letters earlier in the alphabet tend to get better grades at school than those with surnames that appear later, claims a new study due to be published in the online journal Management Science. This isn't due to the students themselves, however, as the researchers say it is the fault of the default ordering of student submissions in alphabetic order.  The researchers—from the University of Michigan—analyzed more than 30 million grading records from students at the university between the fall 2014 semester and the summer 2022 semester, and found that those with names later in the alphabet got lower grades.