Honors College Students' Adjustment Factors and Academic Success: Advising Implications

Abstract

We examined first-semester adjustment among students in and out of an honors college because honors college participants receive relatively little attention in the advising literature. As expected, honors college students earned relatively high grades and were associated with high retention rates. Two noncognitive factors predicted these differences: self-confidence and external influences on college choice. In an interesting finding, honors students expressed less self-confidence and placed greater importance on external college-choice factors than their high-achieving peers outside the honors college. Implications for the support of honors students and their peers are discussed.