Northwestern and the University of Arizona are two almost entirely different schools, with freshman dropout rates to match, but they both offer support services to struggling students.
Trying to raise the number of freshmen continuing on to sophomore year, Arizona has started offering support services for students. The school’s freshman retention rate of 77 percent, which has held steady for the past 10 years, is among the nation’s lowest.
In spite of a relatively high freshman retention rate, NU also has implemented a network of resources to help struggling students.
Ninety-six percent of NU freshmen continue on to their sophomore year, placing NU 13th among the top 50 major universities, according to this year’s U.S. News college rankings. Harvard is 12th in freshman retention.
That’s an increase from 81.2 percent in 1992, the last year in which NU compiled statistics on freshman retention. Statistics for 1993-94 will be released during the next academic year.
Differing admissions standards between Arizona and NU – and the students drawn to each school as a result – could explain the discrepancy, said Alex Lisak, a Weinberg junior.
“The average student here gets a lot of pressure from their parents,” Lisak said. “Most people here were expected to go to college, expected to graduate, expected to be successful.”
Lisak said that if he was thinking about leaving school, he would “probably go talk to my friends or my parents . . . before I went through any official university channels.”
But sometimes students do seek on-campus counseling, said Stephanie Link of Counseling and Psychological Services. Students are eligible for 12 free CAPS visits in four years.
About two-thirds of the students who go to CAPS list schoolwork and grades as reasons for the visits, according to the CAPS Web site. Students also can turn to religious counselors or their residential assistants.
The reasons for NU student withdrawals are “often personal” and related to issues such as family sickness, said Gregory Cera of the Academic Advising Center. With heavy academic expectations to meet, most students do not leave NU permanently.
NU students who are suffering academically can turn to the Career Development Center or the Academic Advising Center for everything from learning how to take lecture notes to inter-school transfers to transferring out of NU altogether. Academic advisers also are assigned to all students.
Students at Arizona can turn to both peer and faculty advisers for help in the face of overwhelming academic demands.
Freshmen deemed to be high-risk based on high school grades are encouraged to work with faculty members in a semester-long course. Students who participate in this program increase their chances of graduation by 6 to 8 percent.
