What Advising Files Tell Us about Students Who Leave General College?

Abstract

This study describes information contained in advising files about issues students encounter during their first two years of college, and the potential value of this information in understanding student leaving. Students who enrolled in a college program for underqualified students and who left before the end of their sophomore year were identified and 100 were chosen at random for file analysis. The analysis suggested that leavers in poor academic standing had more and different issues reported in their files than did leavers in good academic standing. This suggests a possible relationship between issues and different types of leaving or may be the result of higher self-disclosure within the poor academic standing group.