Characteristics of College Freshman

A recent survey by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA of more than 200,000 first-time, full-time students reveals some of the characteristics that students bring with them to college. Findings show that incoming students are more academically oriented, chose to go to college to improve their job prospects, and have challenges financing their education. Revisiting the main findings from last year’s administration of the CIRP Freshman Survey, this report states that the researchers continue to see high levels of feeling overwhelmed and low levels of self-efficacy in emotional health in our incoming first-year students.

Pryor, J. H., DeAngelo, L., Blake, L. P., Hurtado, S., & Tran, S. (2011). The American freshman: National norms fall 2011. Los Angeles, CA: Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. https://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/TFS/Norms/Monographs/TheAmericanFreshman2011.pdf