The sophomore year represents a critical transition for students. As institutions shift their attention from these students to the incoming class, sophomores can feel unsupported as they face increased academic challenges and explore major and career options. Sophomore dropout and disengagement has led administrators, faculty, and researchers to increase their attention to these students’ unique needs.

The 2019 National Survey of Sophomore-Year Initiatives sought to explore institutional responses to and support for sophomore students. This new report reviews these findings, including institutional practices related to academic advising for sophomores. Additionally, the report offers implications for research and practice by highlighting the ways in which institutional efforts and initiatives can be better designed for responsiveness based on differences in campus context, student backgrounds, and student needs.

When it was originally released, Thriving in Transitions: A Research-Based Approach to College Student Success represented a paradigm shift in the student success literature, moving the student success conversation beyond college completion to focus on student characteristics that promote high levels of academic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal performance in the college environment. The authors contend that a focus on remediating student characteristics or merely encouraging specific behaviors is inadequate to promote success in college and beyond. Drawing on research on college student thriving completed since 2012, the newly revised collection presents six research studies describing the characteristics that predict thriving in different groups of college students, including first-year students, transfer students, high-risk students, students of color, sophomores, and seniors, and offers recommendations for helping students thrive in college and life. New to this edition is a chapter focused on the role of faculty in supporting college student thriving.

Traditionally, institutional supports for college student success have been concentrated in the first and senior years, though attention to the sophomore year has increased over the last two decades. Paying attention to the second college year is vitally important, as some evidence suggests students are more likely to leave their institution during this time than they are in the first year. The case studies of sophomore initiatives featured in this volume describe programs that build on institutional objectives for the first college year and prepare students for the transition to the major and, ultimately, graduation. Rich program descriptions and discussions of assessment provide practitioners focused on designing a cohesive undergraduate experience excellent models to guide their work.

The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition has been studying the structure and administration of high-impact practices in the first college year for nearly three decades. 

This package offers the most comprehensive landscape study of these initiatives to date, drawing on analysis of the 2017 National Survey of the First-Year Experience. The survey includes sections on overall institutional attention to the first year, as well as common first-year programs including first-year seminars, academic advising, orientation, common-reading initiatives, early-alert programs, learning communities, and residential programs.

The package includes:

2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience: Creating and Coordinating Structures to Support Student Success, a paperback report of the major findings of the survey with analysis of specific first-year initiatives written by scholars and practitioners in the field.

Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience, an eBook which contains comprehensive data tables including responses to all survey items disaggregated by institutional type, control, and first-year cohort size.

Buy separately or as a package with the eBook Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience.

The first-year seminar continues to be a common structure for supporting student success in higher education, yet it represents only one of many first-year programs.

With this in mind, the 2017 National Survey on The First-Year Experience marks a change from previous surveys administered by The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition by exploring a broad range of initiatives designed to support success in the first college year.

Recognizing that individual first-year programs are connected to extensive bodies of literature and practice, authors representing diverse professional networks focused on college student success contribute their voices to the analyses and presentation of results. The report includes an overview of institutional attention to the first year and the prevalence of and connections between first-year programs, a review of the results relating to selected first-year programs, and implications for practice and future research.

The 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience was designed to explore the structure and administration of a broad range of initiatives designed to support success in the first college year. Specific sections of the survey examine overall institutional attention to the first year, as well as common first-year programs including first-year seminars, academic advising, orientation, common-reading initiatives, early-alert programs, learning communities, and residential programs.

Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on The First-Year Experience is a fixed-layout eBook which contains comprehensive data tables including responses to all survey items disaggregated by institutional type, control, and first-year cohort size.

Buy the eBook separately or as a package with the print version of the Research Report on College Transitions No. 9, 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience: Creating and Coordinating Structures to Support Student Success.

Colleges and universities are seeing increasing numbers of students with a range of disabilities enrolling in postsecondary education. Many of these disabilities are invisible and, despite their potential for negative impact on students’ academic and social adjustment, some students will choose not to identify as having a disability or request support.

Approaching disability from the perspective of difference, the authors of this new volume offer guidance on creating more inclusive learning environments on campus so that all students—whether or not they have a recognized disability—have the opportunity to succeed. Strategies for supporting students with specific learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder or who display learning and behavioral characteristics associated with these profiles are described. A valuable resource for instructors, advisors, academic support personnel, and others who work directly with college students.

Published in partnership with the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students.

Analysis of bachelor’s degree completion suggests that only about a third of college graduates attend a single institution from start to finish. More than one quarter earn college credits from three or more schools before completing a degree. For most, these student-defined pathways lead to increased time-to-degree and higher costs. Many will simply drop out long before crossing the finish line. Ensuring college completion and success requires an understanding of the evolving nature of transfer transitions and a system-wide approach that reaches beyond two-year and four-year institutions to include high schools participating in dual enrollment programs and military college initiatives. A new edited collection offers insight into institutional and statewide partnerships that create clearly defined pathways to college graduation and career success for all students.