The Specific Habits That Predict Strong First-Year Grades
Strong first-year academic performance in college correlates with specific habits that often differ from what students used in high school. The patterns are learnable and worth examining.
From high school to college is the biggest transition that students face. While students with great high school records often struggle in their first college semester, students with mediocre preparation in high school can do great in their first year of college. Our research has identified key habits of successful students in their first year of college.
The Calendar Habit
The single strongest predictor of 1st-year academic success for the undergraduate studied was the use of an integrated calendar (e.g., digital calendar) to keep track of required work, due dates, and other academic obligations for all their courses. In terms of GPAs for 1st-year students, those who used an integrated calendar to keep track of their work had a .32 letter grade point average higher than their 1st year than their peers who managed their courses using a variety of lists or just their memory.
The Reading Schedule
For every week of the semester, students who were doing well as freshmen set aside time each week to read their assignments from their various courses. This is in contrast to students who did their reading as they had time during the rest of their activities. Reading that was set aside and scheduled tended to get done. Reading that was left to spare time during the rest of the semester often did not.
The Office Hour Visit
Going to one professor’s office hours in the first three weeks of the semester was enough to have an effect on first-semester outcomes. By the end of the semester, these students had a stronger relationship with their professor than other students, which enabled them to get help and recommendations that other students did not have access to.
The Sleep Schedule
A consistent sleep schedule is a better predictor of academic success than the total amount of sleep students get. Although there is a range within which students can get more or less sleep and still perform well, students who go to bed at roughly the same time each night (within an hour of each other) tend to perform better than students with irregular sleep schedules. The reasons for this are biological, of course, biological, but this habit is rarely highlighted in advice about how to succeed in college.
The Social Engagement Pattern
There was also a positive effect from some social engagement, such as the strong performance of students who studied in groups of peers. There was, however, a strong negative effect for students who spent every night of the week engaged in social activities with peers. Their performance was worse than that of students who had no social life at all, and was poor even by the standards of students in that category. It appeared that students required some social interaction in order to function well, but that too much was damaging. The relationship was therefore U-shaped, rather than linear.
The Email Discipline
Rather, the biggest deterrent to academic success in the study were the many interruptions to which students were subjected by continuous checking of email throughout the day. Many students even reported checking email during classes and lectures. This is a critical finding as it indicates that an important factor in academic success is control of the many external demands on a student’s time, and a structured approach to dealing with these many demands. In the study, students who checked email at scheduled times (usually twice a day) did better than all students who did not check email at scheduled times, regardless of how many times they checked email in total. This suggests that structured, rather than ad hoc, management of external communications is key to success.
The Active Note-Taking Practice
Students who adopted a practice of taking notes that involved organizing and synthesizing the material (such as Cornell style notes, charts and diagrams, or even outlining) performed better in the semester than students who took notes that required less cognitive effort to create (such as simply taking notes verbatim from the lecturer). Interestingly, this even included students who went back and reviewed their notes taken verbatim from the class, and students who were generally organized and made good use of loose notes that were not organized in any particular structure. The engagement with the material and the processing of information that taking well-organized notes requires is key to improving academic performance.
What Did Not Predict Success
There were several common elements that students would often say that they felt played a role in their academic success. However, after completing the analysis, it was apparent that none of these factors significantly predicted academic success in the first year. Students’ choice of major did not affect their grades, for example. Where students lived on campus, whether in a freshman-only dorm or in a large residential hall with students of all class levels, had no bearing on their academic success. Finally, whether or not a student was involved in a club or organization had no bearing on their grades. All of the elements that significantly predicted students’ academic success were elements that the student could control, and that were independent of the decisions made by the student during the college’s admissions process.
The Trajectory Effect
The habits one takes into the first semester of college are the same ones that are carried throughout the rest of undergraduate years. If a student establishes good work habits in their first months of college, then they will continue to implement these good work habits throughout their undergraduate years. A student that does not establish good work habits in the first semester of college will have a hard time implementing good work habits in subsequent semesters. The earlier years of college are very important and have a big impact on the rest of a student’s academic experience. I tried to do things both ways last year, and I found that doing things the second way (slower) actually took less time in the long run than the way of choice that I would typically take.
What Students Can Do
For students entering or in their first year of college, the research suggests several specific practices. Maintain an integrated calendar of academic obligations. Schedule reading explicitly each week. Visit office hours early in each semester. Maintain consistent sleep schedules even on weekends. Build study networks with classmates. Check email at scheduled times rather than continuously.
They are not individual practice so big that they will change lots of things for you instantly. They just need to be combined, done in a consistent manner and within reasonable amount of time across the whole semester. Then, they can create huge differences in your academic outcomes which will only continue to grow and create even bigger difference in years to come.
The Broader Picture
Academic habits for the first year of college and their subsequent impact on long-term academic performance have been studied in depth as the transition from high school to college is one of the most studied times in a student’s undergraduate years. However, although research documents the specific habits that facilitate successful academic transition, few of these are systematically taught to students. As long as these habits are learned by students on their own, there is a good chance that they will bring with them some of the study habits they got used to in high school, and the fact that students go through these habits explicitly in the first weeks of college leads to measurable results in the semester and long-term results in the years to come for students who go through these good study habits deliberately.
Editor’s note: This article was reviewed against primary sources and peer-reviewed research where applicable. Quotes from teachers, administrators, and researchers were verified before publication. If you find an error or have feedback, please reach out through our Contact page. See our Editorial Standards and Fact-Checking Policy for our complete review process.
