It’s that time of year! Have you checked in and assessed your new first-year and transfer students? Finding out how the transition to college is going for new students is critical. I remember being a first year student and the long bus ride home for my short fall break. It was at that time (no more than about six weeks into the semester) that I was already researching my transfer options and how to get as far away from my roommate as possible. I was proof that students often know right away whether the college is a good fit for them academically and socially. Checking in at the end of the first semester or first year is too late unfortunately, as it was for me at my first college.

In many instances, student attrition may be out of your control, but you need to know the reasons that students are leaving your college. According to Tinto, there seem to be several distinct causes of voluntary departures. These reasons include an inability to adjust both socially and academically, as well as general uncertainty about goals and a lack of congruence or feeling out of place. And there are those obvious pulls on students in terms of their external commitments and especially financial issues.

StudentVoice facilitates two studies focused on students’ transition to college. First is the Evaluating Academic Success Effectively with EASE study (you can review the questions through the featured project link at: http://www.studentvoice.com/app/views/community/). This study, developed by one of our amazing bloggers – Ted Elling at UNCC - is unique in that in addition to it being a check-in assessment for linking later on with institutional data – it is also meant to be an early intervention tool that campuses can use to link students to resources and services that can help them during their first semester and beyond. For example, if a respondent says that they are having difficulty in one or more courses, they can be re-directed at the end of the assessment to a link for the campus Tutoring Center or peer mentoring program.

During our first year of administering EASE, we received an email from a respondent. It simply said “Thanks for asking.”  I was struck by that - because it was genuine and also suggested to me that EASE might have been the first time that the student had been asked about how things were going. We also received an email from a student that proceeded to tell us their whole life story – because we had neglected to include any sort of comment box at the end (a good assessment lesson – always include a final comment box for anything that a respondent may feel the need to share with you). If by participating in EASE (or any type of new student check-in survey), your campus can connect one new student to a resource or to service or to a person that is going to help them to be successful – then it is well worth the work and may mean one more student that you will be able to count as an alum some day!

A second study we facilitate with new students is our Orientation Benchmarking Study (details are under our Resource Center for Orientation at http://www.studentvoice.com/app/views/community/resourcecenterlist.aspx). This year, we have almost 40 campuses participating so far. This study looks at the outcomes or orientation some eight-ten weeks after orientation when the information has had time to sink in with students (or not sink in, as the case may be). Many campuses struggle when asked to provide evidence about the value of orientation programming. Orientation impacts many people on campus – from those asked to staff resource fairs to faculty asked to advise to the many orientation leaders charged with helping new students to feel welcome. Bottom line - orientation is a big deal and those involved need to have data to show that it matters. When I have the opportunity to look at the results of the study, some of the most revealing data relates to students’ responses to the following: What questions do you wish had been answered during orientation that would have been helpful during your first few weeks on campus? Like EASE, if you can glean one useful piece of information from this question that can enhance your orientation program, the assessment is well worth it! And there is the added benefit of seeing how your results compare to national and peer comparison data.

It is not too late to participate in either of these studies. And I know that many of your campuses are using great home-grown instruments as well, so feel free to share your check-in surveys and early warning tools with the online Community.  For any project on our site, there is a SHARE button on the project page now – so try it out.

Looking back, I am not sure if a check-in assessment would have helped me to stay at my first college, but it would have been nice to have been asked how things were going. For those wondering, I proceeded to NOT persist at a second college my sophomore year, but the third was finally just right for me. If only someone had told me to read Tinto back then…