Making the Most of a Small Midwestern University: The Case of Transfer Students.

Although there is a substantial literature on factors that encourage college students' success, Light's 2001 Harvard study, Making the Most of College, represents the largest qualitative study in a highly quantitative gathering. There is little qualitative research on college-student success, especially that of transfer students. To discover how well Light's findings generalize, this research investigates a very different case, that of transfer students in a small, regional teaching university. The researchers use focus groups, individual interviews, and field notes to gather data from just under 100 seniors, a quarter of the senior class. While the research confirms many of Light's findings, some findings differ (reasons for attending, attitudes toward employment, motivation for success, college-university transition); and others nuance Light's work. ********** Although there is a substantial literature on the factors that encourage college students' success (e.g., Berger, 2002; Terenzini, Pascarella, & Blimling, 1999), Light's 2001 Harvard study, Making the Most of College, represents the largest qualitative study in a highly quantitative gathering. It also offers perhaps the richest basket of practical suggestions for both students and faculty. Based on 10 years of research and over 1,000 in-depth student interviews, the research describes the educational environment that promotes academic and personal success for students in a highly-selective, private university. After having presented his findings at a wide range of universities, Light speculates that the findings apply broadly, to different types of colleges across the country. Two of the researchers presented the highlights of Light's findings to faculty gathered at a small Midwestern teaching university for a brown-bag lunch on innovative teaching practices. Members of the audience wondered how those findings might apply to their university, so different from Harvard's. The Midwestern university varied from Harvard in size, entrance requirements, likelihood that a student's parents attended college, level of diversity, proportion of residential students, and regional rather than national character. Also, in 2004, the 300 transfer students entering the Midwestern university from community and other colleges roughly equaled the number of entering freshman, while Harvard enrolled only 75 transfer students, fewer than 5% of the over 1600 freshmen (Zhou, 2004). Since in the U.S. 46% of college students initially take the community-college route (Boggs, 2005), attitudes of transfer students toward college success seemed particularly important for study. The purpose of this research, then, was to examine the degree to which certain factors that spelled academic and personal success for students in a large, highly-selective research university generalized to transfer students in a small, regional teaching university. In essence, the research examined students with characteristics dissimilar from those at Harvard, who were studying in a different environment, to determine common findings, and distinctions. While this research could not replicate Light's 10-year effort, it focused on three areas of investigation: academic, employment, and extra-curricular experiences, noting where success factors matched and where they did not. Review of the Literature In the extensive literature addressing issues related to college students and their success, success was defined in a variety of ways, from cognitive growth, to psychosocial growth, to persistence in college; and the factors studied varied from academic involvement (Terenzini & Springer, 1995), to comprehensive out-of-class involvement (Terenzini, Pascarella & Blimling, 1999), to social life (Astin, 1993), to interactions with faculty (Graham & Gisi, 2000), to place of residence (Inman & Pascarella, 1998), to athletics (Pascarella & Truckenmiller, 1999), to employment (Dundes & Marx, 2006; Canabal, 1998). …

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