Over the past 3 years the College Characteristics Index (CCI) (Stern & Pace, 1958) has been filled out by several thousand students in more than a hundred colleges (Pace, 1960;Pace & Stern, 1958; Thistlethwaite, 1959). The instrument is intended to give an estimate of the press of the college environment. The 30 press scales in the CCI parallel the 30 needs scales in the Stern Activities Index (AI) (Stern, 1958). In using and interpreting the instrument, it is clearly important to know whether the personality of the students who answer its items has any appreciable relationship to the way they answer them. McConnell and Heist (1959), noting that the personality characteristics of student bodies vary widely from one college to another, and even between colleges which are highly selective in scholastic aptitude, have raised the question: "Do students make the college?" If one is to study the interaction between students and environments one must have independent estimates of each. The CCI should give an estimate of the environmental press independent of the personality needs of the students responding to it. Does it in fact do so? This study attempted to answer this question on two levels: the general relation between corresponding need and press measures, and the specific relation of each CCI 1 This paper is based on the writer's MA thesis in Psychology at Syracuse University.The author wishes to thank C. R. Pace for his extensive suggestions and guidance throughout the course of the study.
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