Predicting Academic Success in Undergraduates

College academic success and retention twvc tradi tionally been prcdich..-U using demographic and academic variables. This study in vcstigall.:tilhc influence of student heal th on or A and intent 10 drop out of college. A longitudinal survt.:y of 242 freshmen rcvc.1lcd that cmOlional and social faclors (e.g., stress, living in the donn, being in a study group) prcdiC1I."d second semester Or A and intentions 10 drop oul (e.g .. perfectionism, fatigue). Implications for intCJ"yention st rategies arc discussed. lilt rod IIct iOIl A major challenge facing fo ur-year colleges and universities is the success ful re tention of students, and this issue becomes particularly important whcn examining rates o f retention for first year college students. It has been found that approximately onequarter of incoming freshman do not return to the same insti tution the following year, with hal f o f these students making the decision to leave in the firs t six weeks (Upcraft & Gardner, 1989). Although some students leave for reasons beyond the contro l of these institutions (e.g., family emergency), most attrition is preventable (Levitz & Noel, 1989). Previous studies have exam ined the importance of student characteristics in predicting student Sllccess, including gender (She ilds, 200 1), age (Owen, 2003), high school GPA (Hoffman & Lowitzki, 2005; Kirby & Sharpe, 200 1), high school rank (1·laviland, Shaw, & Haviland, 1984), ACT/SAT scores (Gifford, Briceno-Perriolt, & Mianzo, 2006; Hoffman & Lowitzki, 2005), initial college GPAI academic difficulties (Kirby & Sharpe, 200 I ; Sheilds, 200 I) and parents' education (T ing & Robinson, 1998). However, few studies have examined one crucial impediment to academic success and retention: student we ll bei ng ( Lea fgran, 1989). Not surprisingly, it has been found that students who are depressed (Fazio & Palm, 1998) tend to have lower GPAs than students who are not, whereas students reporting high stress levels arc more likely to have a lower GPA (Pri tchard & Wi lson, 2003; Sheilds. 200 1). Certain personality characteristics such as consc ientiousness (Tross, Harper, Osher, & Kneidinger, 2000), and achievement-oriented or perfectionistic behavior (Pritchard & Wilson, 2003) arc associated with a higher co llege GPA. Several studies have found that personality traits also affect re tcnlion (Cody, 1996). Students with adaptive perfectionism (Rice & Mirzadeh, 2000) tend to adjust better to college, and thus lend to stay in school; whereas individuals who reponed mo re fatigue and lower self-esteem than their peers are more likely 10 report an intent to drop o ut on academic surveys (Pritchard & Wilson). Because GPA (Brooks & Du Bo is, 1995) and re tention (Upcraft & Gardner, 1989) are predicted by soc ial support, researchers need to examine the kinds and degree of support s tudents receive. Students with good support from friends and family and favo rable impress ions of other students have higher retentio n ra tes. In fact, just the support provided by residential group membership (Upcraft & Gardner, 1989) can improve retentio n. Students who live on campus also tend to report a greater sense o f