Attending Your First Choice and Satisfaction

Recently Jessica Sharkness, a graduate student researcher here at HERI, and I wondered if students who attended their first-choice college were more likely to be satisfied with their first-year of college. If you’ve been around a high-school senior when admissions letters roll in, you know that this can be a time of great joy or great sorrow. But does first choice really matter? It turns out it matters a little bit, but really what influences satisfaction most is what you do at college and how well you feel you belong there. I presented this study at the recent College Board meeting. Eric Hoover from the Chronicle of Higher Education was in the audience, and subsequently wrote an article about it.