Emotional, Social, and Academic Adjustment of College Students: A Longitudinal Study of Retention

Prior to initial enrollment, undergraduates completed surveys assessing expectations about their college adjustment, and later completed a second survey assessing actual adjustment. Six years later inspection of academic transcripts revealed which students had dropped out and whether they had been in good academic standing or poor academic standing. Results indicated that two different sets of items best discriminated among good‐standing students, the persisters (n=113) and the leavers (n=29), and among poor‐standing students, persisters (n=36) and leavers (n=30). Generally, emotional and social adjustment items predicted attrition as well or better than academic adjustment items.