Determinants of College Success

Abstract

N 1937-38 the Committee on Student Organizations of the faculty of the University of New Hampshire surveyed the recreational and social life of the entire student body. The results of this study raised many questions in regard to factors promoting academic success and personal development. The committee, therefore, undertook in 1938-39 a more complete survey of the freshman class entering in the fall of 1938 to secure material that would aid in determining University policy. The University of New Hampshire is a state university with an enrollment of about fourteen hundred men and six hundred women. The activities of the University and of the town of Durham in which it is located are coterminous. About half of the student body are from communities with populations of five thousand or less and live within fifty miles of the University. Sixty per cent live in University dormitories, about thirty per cent in fraternity and sorority houses, and the remainder in private homes and in independent establishments. Members of the freshman class of I938-39 came from secondary schools with enrollments ranging from nineteen to nine thousand. The median group, comprising in this report 46 per cent of the class, are graduates of schools with enrollments of one hundred and sixty to eight hundred and fifty students. The information for the 1937-38 survey was obtained from an unsigned questionnaire. This questionnaire included personnel data covering such points as campus residence, academic program, and paid employment. It also included information on student participation in unorganized social activities and in campus organizations. Eighty per cent of the student body returned questionnaires. The information for the survey of Freshmen entering in 1938 was obtained from the following sources: the high-school or preparatory-school record, academic record for the first semester, freshman test scores, expectancy performance as later defined, ratings on social development, and a questionnaire answered by the students. The material needed for the second, third, and fourth classifications was obtained from the registrar's records. A student's rating in regard to social development represents an appraisal by the faculty adviser and by two or more persons acquainted with the student. With