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Research on a scale measuring adjustment to college is described. A 52-item self-report Likert-type scale, yielding indices of four aspects of adjustment as well as a full-scale score, was administered once each semester in each of 3 successive academic years to samples of freshman students. Reliability data for the scale as a whole and for the several subscales individually are presented, and validity is assessed through examination of the relationship between the subscales and several independent variables expected to be differentially relevant to the subscales. Criterion variables employed were attrition, appeals for services from a psychological services center, freshman year grade point average, election to an academic honorary society, a social activities checklist, and decisions regarding applications for dormitory assistant positions. Implications for use of the scale in counseling and other remedial interventions are discussed.

Earlier investigations of the "freshman myth" have focused on the differences between expectations and perceptions of the college environment, finding that entering students typically anticipate more from that environment than is subsequently realized. The research reported here examines differences between expectations and perceptions of self-assessed adjustment to college to determine whether students also expect more of themselves than is subsequently realized. Occurrence of the myth in this new form is found with samples of freshmen at two colleges. Differences in occurrence of the myth in various aspects of the adjustment are described, and the possibility of differences in occurrence at the two colleges is considered. Evidence concerning the course of the myth over time is presented, and individual differences in and behavioral correlates of the myth are identified. Implications of findings are discussed and new lines of investigation proposed.It is not often that a psychological research finding is confirmed repeatedly by different investigators working in many different places with many different kinds of samples, and even with different methodological designs, but that is what happens in the case of the "freshman myth" (Stern, 1966(Stern, , 1970. The myth refers to the fact that, on the average, entering freshmen have expectations concerning college that are more positively toned than the actual expe-

An intervention into the lives of college freshmen based on a scale measuring adjustment to college is described. The principal purposes of the study were to explore the practical usefulness of the scale in an interview and to examine the consequences of the intervention. The scale was used (a) to identify, for comparison through interview, students occupying extremes of score distributions on measures of effectiveness of adjustment to college, (b) to serve as a source of topics for discussion in interviews, and (c) to measure the effects of intervention through pre-and posttesting. Qualitative and quantitative findings are presented regarding (a) attitude of students toward use of the scale, (b) the correspondence between test data and effectiveness of adjustment to college, and (c) the consequences of intervention by interviews for students indicated by the scale as well adjusted and less well adjusted. Implications for additional research with the scale are discussed.

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