Students from 4-year colleges often arrive having already done very well in high school, but by the end of first term, a wide dispersion of performance emerges, with an especially large lower tail. Students that do well in first year (we call the top 10 percent Thrivers) tend to continue to do well throughout the rest of their time in university. Students that do poorly (we call the bottom 10 percent Divers) greatly struggle and are at risk of not completing their degree. In this paper we use a mandatory survey with open ended questions asking students about their first-year experience. This allows us to explore more closely what sets Thrivers and Divers apart, in terms of study habits, attitudes, and personal experiences. We find that poor time management and lack of study hours are most associated with poor academic performance, and that those who struggle recognize these weaknesses. Divers also report feeling more depressed and unhappy with their lives. We posit an 'academic trap', whereby initial poor performance is related to poor time management which in turn lowers expectations, which in turn leads to lower study time, and so on. Thrivers, in contrast, study significantly more and meet with course instructors.
We collect a comprehensive set of non-academic characteristics for a representative sample of incoming freshman to explore which measures best predict the wide variance in first-year college performance unaccounted for by past grades. We focus our attention on student outliers. Students whose first-year college average is far below expectations (divers) have a high propensity for procrastination-they self-report cramming for exams and wait longer before starting assignments. They are also considerably less conscientious than their peers. Divers are more likely to express superficial goals, hoping to 'get rich' quickly. In contrast, students who exceed expectations (thrivers) express more philanthropic goals, are purpose-driven, and are willing to study more hours per week to obtain the higher GPA they expect. A simple seven-variable average of these key non-academic variables does well in predicting college achievement relative to adding more variables or letting a machine-algorithm choose. Our results, descriptive in nature, warrant further research on the importance of non-linearities for the design and targeting of successful interventions in higher-education.
This paper estimates the long-term impact of growing up in better neighborhoods and attending better schools on educational attainment. First, I use a spatial regression-discontinuity design to estimate school effects. Second, I study students who move across neighborhoods in Montreal during childhood to estimate the causal effect of growing up in a better area (total exposure effects). I find large effects for both dimensions. Combining both research designs in a decomposition framework, and under key assumptions, I estimate that 50–70 percent of the benefits of moving to a better area on educational attainment are due to access to better schools. (JEL H75, I21, R23)
We collect a comprehensive set of non-academic characteristics for a representative sample of incoming freshman to explore which measures best predict the wide variance in first-year college performance unaccounted for by past grades. We focus our attention on student outliers. Students whose first-year college average is far below expectations (divers) have a high propensity for procrastination-they self-report cramming for exams and wait longer before starting assignments. They are also considerably less conscientious than their peers. Divers are more likely to express superficial goals, hoping to 'get rich' quickly. In contrast, students who exceed expectations (thrivers) express more philanthropic goals, are purpose-driven, and are willing to study more hours per week to obtain the higher GPA they expect. A simple seven-variable average of these key non-academic variables does well in predicting college achievement relative to adding more variables or letting a machine-algorithm choose. Our results, descriptive in nature, warrant further research on the importance of non-linearities for the design and targeting of successful interventions in higher-education.
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