High School Factors as Predictors for College Success: Students’ Satisfaction, Motivation, and Success

This study focused on evaluating and analyzing high school and demographic factors as accurate predictors for college success as well as considering other factors impacting students’ motivation, success, and self-efficacy. Students’ satisfaction with communication, mainly with high school and college advisors, was examined in order to discover what success means to college students and how their educational experiences could have been improved. Specifically, positive relationships were found between students’ satisfaction with their college advisors and three other variables: motivation, success, and self-efficacy. Qualitative results revealed a majority of students’ feeling that success means achieving goals, being happy, and having a career job. In addition, many students reported wishing they had learned more real-life skills and had better opportunities to explore career choices. There was no evidence supporting high school factors as accurate predictors of college success. The results from this study suggest that further analysis of students’ satisfaction with communication could prove valuable for further research aiming to predict and improve students’ success.