Starting Early to Foster College Readiness and Independence

Today's New York Times has an excellent article on college readiness and what happens to many students who are not prepared for college, noting that almost one-third of students won't continue in college for their sophomore year and that only slightly more than half of students will graduate within six years (No, that's not a typo. Six years is the "new" four years).

As the authors note,  "...many teenagers go away to college only to recognize — either because of their grades, their habits, their mental health or all of the above — that they’re not ready for college life." The Times piece cites two primary factors in college failure: the nature of college itself, with poor sleep patterns, lousy diets, and the easy availability of liquor and drugs; and the fact that many students haven't had opportunities to manage their own lives in a way that would prepare them to handle the personal and academic demands of college.

Notably, while the Times piece mentions students with emotional and executive function difficulties, it does not discuss students with previously diagnosed learning and related disabilities. For these students, there are additional complexities involved in arranging and using the accommodations and supports they need.

We've addressed many of these issues before in this blog, and you may want to take a look at some of these past posts once you have read the Times piece. They include:

Choosing the College that Fits

Things to Consider When Heading to College

How to Head Off Academic Trouble in College (in retrospect, perhaps doesn't say enough about fostering student independence)

Other suggestions are set out in your blogger's book, Life After High School -- especially the final chapters dealing with medication and managing the distractions of college life.

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

How Students’ Beliefs May Impact College Graduation Rates

The New York Times recently highlighted the major disconnect between college enrollment rates and college graduation rates. At private nonprofit colleges, only 55 percent of students graduate within six years; and at public universities, the graduation rate is only 46 percent. With college degrees having the potential to significantly impact future job opportunities and earnings, and with the full college learning experience arguably quite valuable for its own sake, it is worth exploring why these graduation statistics may be as they are and how they might be improved.

The Times article noted that there are various reasons that many students drop out, including the feeling that they do not belong. For a person who is already lacking confidence in his or her belonging, small setbacks can be experienced as significant confirmations that college is not the appropriate environment for him or her. This phenomenon highlights the importance of lay theories, or the core beliefs we have about ourselves and our interactions with the world. Past research provides an abundance of examples that show it is often not just the content of a challenge, but also a person’s belief structure in response to that challenge, that is predictive of impact.

Earlier studies about how lay theories impact college students in particular have indicated that students are more successful in college when they believe that transitional challenges are (a) common and (b) able to get better, rather than indicative of a permanent lack of potential. Building upon these studies, researchers recently examined the impact of lay theory interventions before college matriculation. Experimental groups of outgoing high school seniors, who had been accepted to a variety of public and private colleges, received single-session, online lay theory interventions.

A "social-belonging" intervention involved sharing feedback from college students who indicated that most students worry about a sense of belonging and that such worries subside after taking active steps to connect with others. A "growth mindset" intervention involved sharing a summary of research regarding the malleable nature of intelligence and the significance of using effective strategies that can be developed over time. As compared to control groups, students who received the social belonging intervention were more likely to use academic support services, join extracurricular groups, and choose to live on campus. A significant number of the students who received the growth mindset intervention were more likely to complete at least the first two semesters of college.

These results, while preliminary, suggest that lay theory interventions could be valuable tools to use in the quest to improve college graduation rates. If students may be dropping out due to feeling they do not belong, and if a sense of belonging — or steps toward facilitating such — can be fostered by as little as a one-time, online intervention, then similar or expanded interventions certainly seem worth exploring.

Free Back-to-School Workshops for Parents and Educators

The Yellin Center for Mind, Brain, and Education will present a series of free back-to-school workshops for parents and educators at our Center on West 29th Street in Manhattan in the coming weeks.

Jeremy Koren

First up: on Tuesday, September 24, Paul B. Yellin, MD, FAAP,, Associate Professor of Pediatrics at New York University School of Medicine and Director of The Yellin Center will discuss ADHD, Attention, and Learning. Special emphasis will be placed on the topics of common symptoms, the process of diagnosis (and what labels like "ADHD" really mean), some recommended treatments, and how to deploy individualized strategies to best support weak attention and executive-function controls in learners at every grade level, from elementary school through college.

On the following evening,Wednesday, September 25, Susan Yellin, Esq. will present College 101: What Students with Learning Issues (and Their Parents) Should Know. Mrs. Yellin will focus on matters of import to students and parents who are in various stages of the process of transitioning from high school to the more independent setting associated with colleges and universities, including admissions, student support services, choosing a school, SAT/ACT testing issues, disability disclosure considerations, and more. Parents of students from middle school through 12th grade should find this presentation highly informative.

Finally, on Thursday, October 17, Dr. Yellin will present a special discussion on Memory and Learning. In this conversation, Dr. Yellin will aim to provide parents with a new understanding of how variation in the brain functions which control memory can impact a student's performance in school.

All of these events are free, but advance registration is required and space will be limited. Doors open at 4:30 p.m.. Events will begin promptly at 5 p.m. and conclude by 6 p.m. each night.

Register online here, or call The Yellin Center at (646) 775-6646. Please tell a friend to join you! We hope to see you there.

Download printable fliers for the events here and tack them up on your local community or school bulletin board.


-Jeremy Koren