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Updated: October 2023
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By the time students enter college, they’ve invested more than 16,000 hours in academic learning. One might expect them to be adept learners, poised for success. However, instead of relishing their scholastic journey, many find themselves enduring it. The outcomes are stark—students pausing, quitting, or floundering through college.
This article delves beyond common misconceptions of student apathy or unpreparedness, exposing the true factors behind the performance gap. By focusing on the often-overlooked population of good students, we uncover pathways to not only help them thrive but revolutionize academic achievement as a whole.
Drawing insights from my new book, How to Successfully Transition Students into College: From Traps to Triumph, this post profiles the good student population and provides critical insights on ways to help them thrive.
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Picture this scenario: You’re a seasoned professional who has consistently excelled in your role according to your own standards and those of your supervisors. Your track record boasts outstanding performance reviews, and your colleagues hold your work in high esteem.
Now, you’ve transitioned to a new job where your responsibilities remain similar, albeit more demanding. You recognize the increased weight of these duties and pour in extra time and effort, working with heightened dedication. The moment arrives for your first project evaluation. Brimming with confidence, you’re convinced that your invested time and diligent effort will shine through. However, your supervisor deems your work quality as inadequate. To make matters worse, your effort is questioned for the first time in your career.
Stunned by this turn of events, you engage in a conversation with your supervisor to glean insights into what went awry and seek guidance on her expectations for the next project. You absorb her suggestions earnestly and redouble your efforts. Yet, despite your endeavors, your work continues to be judged as subpar. This pattern persists until you eventually disconnect emotionally from your job.
Inevitably, you redirect your energy toward pursuits that yield more significant returns, such as spending time with family or indulging in a hobby. With time, you unwittingly slip into the mold of an average employee—the very image your supervisor once labeled you as.
A similar sense of bewilderment is shared by new college students who aced exams and achieved top grades in high school who now find themselves struggling to reach the level of accomplishment they were confident they’d attain.
Over the past couple of decades, the issue of academic underperformance among college students has garnered considerable attention. Media outlets have extensively covered this phenomenon, and the matter is now a subject of exploration in both learning assistance and general higher education literature. This marks a shift from the typical focus on the “at-risk” population—students with pre-college academic backgrounds suggesting a potential need for extra support in college. The underperforming demographic comprises good students whose academic records indicate that they are prepared for college-level work.
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In my high school…we just learned how not to be outworked by anyone.
– Good Student
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Who are the “good” students?
Good students are those diligent, earnest, hardworking college attendees whose grades fall short of their capabilities and efforts. They’re learners who generally don’t fare poorly enough to trigger institutional academic alarms; their strong academic backgrounds and unwavering work ethics typically shield them from failing courses. Regrettably, what sets these students apart in high school doesn’t suffice to elevate them beyond mediocrity and up to their personal standards.
Students who tasted academic success prior to college enter higher learning institutions with an elevated academic self-image. They’re convinced of their prowess as students and anticipate grades that mirror their exertion and align with their self-perception. Just as the aforementioned employee struggled to build on her previous success in her new job, good students find it challenging to transition from their pre-college learning environment to the college milieu.
These capable learners invest themselves fully in preparing for exams, only to find their efforts deemed insufficient. Their commitment is questioned, leading them to disengage from academics over time, instead investing their efforts in alternative domains. At best, good students who lack adequate academic support will scrape through college but never realize their full potential. At worst—increasingly common—they become casualties of retention.
Why should we care?
They constitute around 80% of the student population.
The good student population forms the largest student cohort by far. Nevertheless, they often remain unrecognized by most colleges and universities, frequently lumped together with the much smaller, more easily identifiable “at-risk” group. In class, these students exhibit the studious habits of their more successful counterparts, whom we’ll refer to as “exceptional learners.” However, their test scores often resemble those of academically challenged students who skip classes or show up unprepared, appearing indifferent to their academic performance. Due to these factors, high-achieving students are frequently misclassified, incorrectly diagnosed or simply overlooked.
A recent article from The Washington Post titled “A Telling Experiment Reveals a Big Problem Among College Students: They Don’t Know How to Study” presents statistics indicating that 66% of students don’t leave college due to financial reasons, confirming observations made years ago that prompted the publication of this article in 2012. The Post piece offers a crucial insight frequently overlooked amid the numerous excuses students provide for leaving: “Some students leave college because classes just aren’t going well.” The scope of this issue is more substantial than anticipated and doesn’t even account for those who remain in school but struggle unnecessarily.
The prosperity of institutions hinges on their ability to identify, engage, and adequately support good students. In doing so, higher education establishments reap the greatest rewards from their investments.
Good students hold the key to transforming the academic landscape.
Effecting cultural change entails influencing students who wield a disproportionate impact on academic norms. Good students serve as potent agents of change due to their vast numbers, amplifying their influence and their potential to make substantial improvements with relatively fewer resources. Paradoxically, colleges and universities often invest in initiatives with high demands but low impact.
From my experience, addressing the needs of good students propels the entire institutional average forward. These students intermingle with lower-performing students, thus a cross-pollination can catapult a considerable portion of academically low-performing students to elevate to “good students” status. This upward shift in academic performance not only enhances the student and faculty culture but also plays a pivotal role in fostering a transformative educational environment.
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How can educators and institutions help their students?
In my new book, How to Successfully Transition Students into College: From Traps to Triumph, I unveil the concealed pitfalls that insidiously erode students’ academic progress, strain teacher-student relationships, and artificially cap their potential. Furthermore, I outline strategies for educators to dismantle these traps, paving a clear path from diligent effort to exceptional performance for good students.
Considering that good students constitute approximately 80% of the student population, offering them proper guidance and tools is not only pivotal for cultivating a culture of academic excellence but also a critical element for ensuring financial stability. However, numerous institutions are currently overlooking these students, providing inadequate support, and inadvertently impeding their efforts toward institutional success.
Within your classrooms, a plethora of good students remain oblivious to their entrapment. Here are three specific traps I delve into extensively in my book, which will aid you in identifying these promising individuals amidst your student body:
The 80/20 Trap
The 80/20 Trap materializes when students’ misconstrued notions of learning, carried over from their high school experiences, clash with the realities of college-level education. This becomes evident when students rely solely on attending lectures, overlooking their personal responsibility in managing their learning process.
This trap typically surfaces within the initial weeks of the semester. For instance, I vividly recall visiting a study session at the University of California, San Diego, where students were collectively poring over their class notes. When I inquired about their subsequent plans, they appeared puzzled, believing they had completed their study session.
It’s crucial for students to grasp that validating and finishing class notes mark the start of their learning journey, not its culmination. College educators can help extricate students from this trap by making strategic adjustments to their course structure and resources, empowering students to embrace independent learning.
The Academic Myopia Trap
This trap involves cognitive narrow-mindedness, wherein students concentrate solely on absorbing course content, neglecting the cultivation of course learning outcomes. As an example, consider a student enrolled in a course named “Accounting for Decision Making.” This student might meticulously scrutinize corporate documents, like annual reports and financial statements, yet fail to grasp how to utilize these documents for making business decisions. Consequently, they fall short of achieving the desired outcome and inevitably underperform.
The Pseudowork Trap
Pseudowork deludes individuals into thinking they’re making progress, while their efforts eventually prove futile. Imagine dedicated nursing students meticulously filling whiteboards with copious information. Despite feeling productive as the hours tick away, their efforts yield disappointing grades. They have unwittingly succumbed to the pseudowork trap.
Moreover, when students become ensnared in this trap, they inadvertently pull faculty members into it as well. Faculty might recognize the trap’s hold when they find themselves reteaching material or reviewing concepts during office hours. Despite the extra effort, they feel overwhelmed and undervalued.
By understanding these traps and their dynamics, educators can recalibrate their approaches, offering targeted interventions that liberate good students from their confines. In doing so, institutions can unlock the full potential of these students, fostering not only individual success but also driving broader positive transformations within the academic landscape.
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120 comments
kurye
I admire your ability to tackle complex issues with clarity and compassion.
Leonard Geddes
Thanks Kurye. Your comments mean a lot to me because that is my core mission. Check out my forthcoming book at: http://www.transitiontraps.com.
Carla Hatfield
I will use this diagram to incorporate an acitivty about the differences in college and high school. This will really bring clarity to students about what college is and is NOT. I like how you utilized this diagram to show the connection of mutiple points of learning in high school and college.
Leonard Geddes
Thanks Carla,
It’s great to see that you are still doing impactful work!
Yusuf Aboudi
If only I was taught this before college. This was a amazing article it made me more woke and helped me open my eyes. I can definitely relate to this article.
Kevin
I really wish two things: (1) I had read this before spiraling into failing out of college with no foreseeable opportunity of returning (at least for several more years) and therefore halting any chance of success in getting my dream job; and (2) that far more educators would also read this and apply it, especially in STEM-based degrees where frankly the stereotype holds (in my experience) of a limited mindset in teaching and a focused mindset in being a nerd and not understanding how to teach nerd.
I’m saving this article and hope to find it when the future allows me an opportunity to return to college, and therefore hope to enter college post-40-years of age with no career prospects past 50.
Emily
Hi! I’m a current college student and I see myself falling into the traps mentioned in this article pretty often. However, can you clarify on the 20/80 rule in college? How should I go about in developing the 80% of knowledge that is not imparted?
Jenna
Hello! Thank you for taking the time to think about the overlooked “good students”. I think this article explains why I am doing so badly in college but it doesn’t really give instructions for what the next step is. I went from being an all-A student to struggling to pass my classes despite my efforts and studying which is so discouraging. While I can understand why all these things are happening I still don’t understand how to make any changes to fix these issues.
Leonard Geddes
Hi Emily-
You develop the other 80% by using your thinking skills to go beyond the content that was delivered in class. For example, let’s say your professor references a definition of evolution and a definition of natural selection. She may reference a couple of examples to add more life to the definitions. Your job is to recognize that this information is only a small portion of what she will expect you to know. I can’t tell you exactly what she will want you to know, but I can tell you that, if the course is challenging, then you will need to know the information at a deeper level than this. So, you might use the ThinkWell-LearnWell Diagram to analyze the difference between evolution and natural selection. If you do the work to extend your knowledge to this depth, then you will be able to answer question prompts that are asking you to perform at this level. This is the other 80%. I hope this helps.
Raj
These are immensely valuable tips and insights for any college student to maximize not just the college experience but also self esteem and performance.
Jon
Great article, what you wrote really resonated with me because I could relate to many of the conditioned biases of a pre-college learning environment. I will review the outlined tips regularly in order to get back on track with academic achievements.
Bethany
Wow this is definitely me… I’m a senior in college and I have never realized any of this until now… I feel ashamed for not knowing but no one ever told me..
Gaynor Groenewald
This is exactly what I need to understand why my child is having such a hard time adjusting!
Sandeep Sharma
I am a freshman in college and struggling with the same problem. I can’t be the student that I was in my high school. Now, after reading this article, I am figuring out the reasons behind it and also trying to solve all of them as soon as possible. This is well-researched article and helpful to students like me.
Joanne Chung
I totally agree with this method. I have been struggling to adjust to college and i think this will help me out.
Ningkang Zhao
I love this article, because it’s just reflect my situation right now. I really want to adjust myself and adapt the college life. I think this article will help me a lot about it.
Shuo Hu
Thank you for sharing!
I was confused by same question for many years. Luckily, I found the explanation and solution in your article. I am looking forward to my future, in other words, college life!
Alex
Great information so insightful and really enlightening.
C. Johnsone
I really like the 80/20, 20/80 approach to explaining the Teacher focused approach vs the Learner focused approach!
Alicia
Thank you for this information! my son is a college freshman and falls right into “good student” category. I’m sending him this information!
Kimberley Jensen
Interesting observations. I wonder how different math classes are from high school math classes. I don’t think that we require them to do much more than apply the information that they have learned.
Steph Bebensee
The 80/20 – 20/80 concept is exactly what students need to understand upon entering college. I think the way this concept is represented is clear and help frame one of the major academic challenges facing students. Very rarely is ability the root of poor academic achievement, the cause is most often related to one’s effort.
B. Lal
Is it ok for these “good children’ to misbehave in class? Is there a reason for this misbehavior by them ? This is in the high school context.
Carley
Very useful information–thank you!
Denise Gravitt
I struggle with getting students to understand that they need to put more effort into their studies in college than they might of had to do in high school, but could never explain it to their or my satisfaction as to WHY they needed to. I think this will help bridge the gap. May not convince them to do so, but if I can reach more students and help them to succeed that are currently struggling with how to do better I will be happy.
Julie Davis Good (formerly Turner)
Interesting approach to a conflicting group of data. As director of doctoral curriculum, I find significance in the “pipeline” discussion – why are we losing diversity of mind too early in the educational path. Your metacognitive approach reinforces those tactics we bring to our students! I look forward to additional discussions with my fellow faculty and administrators. Thank you.
Diane Flores-Kagan
I teach a Managing Writing Anxiety course. You talk about mindsets! I am looking forward to sharing the infographic with my students. Leonard has some of the best. Thank you!
Leonard Geddes
Diane,
Stay tuned for the forthcoming series on writing. I’ll cover the topic from the students and educators perspectives.
E. G. Lerner
I teach an honors section of a first year experience course at a highly diverse state university. This makes for a compelling classroom experience for me and my students. It also means that the students often arrive with widely dissimilar academic preparation. Your 80/20 approach offers a perspective that I feel will really penetrate and aligns well with my presentation of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Many thanks for a terrific article and the pdf!
Chris Baumbach
Great article! I would love to discuss this article with my College Success students this semester. I look forward to the PDF.
Sharon Jacas
When Good Students do Bad is a great article! Very informative and useful information. Can you please send me the link to the pdf of the infographic? Thanks
Minna
Thank you for sharing this article! And it connects to so many helpful resources. I am a Student Affairs professional who coordinates and trains Study Skills tutors, and this information reflects much of what we teach in our trainings, and in our workshops for students. It’s so useful to have this information brought together in one article, and linked to research. I’d love a copy of the pdf if you are willing to share!
Brook Masters
Love all this information and insight! Great conversation topics and visuals to introduce and discuss with Peer Tutors and SI Leaders, as well as in workshops with first year college students. Thank you!
K. E. Adkins
High schools bear some of the blame; by 10th grade high school students should be treated like they ARE in college. No more extra credit. No more getting points for making corrections on tests. No more acceptance of late assignments.
Leonard Geddes
I’m not sure if high school are to blame, but I do think the system in which high school operate bear some responsibility. My work with high schools show that teachers are responsive to a set of short-term metrics and outcomes that work for their environment, but are not compatible with higher education. I think federal and state legislative changes are needed to create a more seamless transition.
Heather Reed
Excellent depiction of the transition from high school to college!
Beverly Cribbs
We have begun talking reaching the “murky middle” of our students, and this article zones in directly on those students. This is a great resource as we are trying to better understand this group of students and develop programs and services to help them move to that next level of learning and success.
Jeanne Pettit
Using this information in a presentation for new student orientation today and tomorrow. Perfect timing! Will be reinforcing it in my UNV 101 course.
Leonard Geddes
These concepts have helped hundreds of students throughout the country and beyond make needed adjustments to college. Good luck!
Rivkah
I’m looking forward to incorporating these ideas into the first-year seminar I teach
Nancy McKinney
Many good points–I’ll share ” 80/20-20/80 ” with my students this first week of class.
Lynn
Interesting article. I look forward to looking closely at the infographic.
Heather P.
Very insightful article! I particularly appreciate the catch phrases to use when talking with students about building upon their strengths and shifting their paradigms. The 80/20; 20/80 mindset is hugely impactful! I really look forward to incorporating this information in campus stakeholder conversations and even training for academic peer leaders!
Michelle Gerdes
Very good article. I like the infographics.
Cheryl Wieseler
I see this every year as I advise new college students. The graphic will be a great illustration of the concept for them. Thanks.
Karen Sirum
Thanks for this concise and applicable description!
Kerry
Thank you for this perspective.
Dave Busse
I would really like to fold this into one of my introductory classes.
michelle Bufkin
Great article! I wonder if these same (or similar issues) occur in the transition from undergraduate to graduate school?
Cathy Tugmon
Very insightful article. I look forward to having a better look at the diagrams
CeCe Edwards
I am the director of my institution’s tutoring center, and this article struck a chord with me. These are the students who wait until after midterms to seek help because they falsely believe, “I’ve got this. I can do this.”
The transition of the great high school student to the “good” college student can also deal a heavy blow to her self-concept. In fact, many high school honors students I have worked with spend a good deal of time in denial that they could possibly be doing as poorly as they are in school. When the realization occurs that it is them and not the professor or the school, they are confused and sometimes devastated. They feel short-changed by their high school teachers and chagrined with college faculty and staff who didn’t emphasize the difference between high school and college enough. I understand why they leave.
Leonard Geddes
Well said! And this is why we lose so many good students.
Sue Mark-Sracic
The article is reflective of what I have observed as well at my university. Presenting the 80/20 principle and including the info graphic chart I believe would help students grasp what shifts in thinking might be needed in transitioning between high school and college.
TheRock
One hurdle for students is understanding that trying harder is not the same as trying better. Given that they’ve have invested those 20,000 hours in what may be unproductive behaviors, they need convincing and coaching in order to develop better habits of mind.
Leonard Geddes
The challenge is that students’ behaviors have been productive in their past academic environments. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so it’s perfectly normal and expected for students to rely upon what has worked for them (hence the opening part of the article.)
Diane
Great information. Including the 80/20, 20/80 principle in a syllabus and reviewing these concepts the first day of class might help students know how to better apply their study time.
Leonard Geddes
I agree. It’s one of the most consequential concepts that students must learn, fully appreciate the implications and work out in their daily academic experience. In addition to teaching it the first day, I recommend you revisit it in subsequent weeks.
Lisa Crumit-Hancock
Thank you for your work and for creating this project to share and disseminate your concepts and ideas to your colleagues. I have been following and reading your posts for years and always appreciate your insight.
Leonard Geddes
Thanks for your interest. We have some awesome pieces coming out soon.
Jeff Weaver
Interesting article I will share with my first year college students this afternoon.
Lea
I’ve shared the original 80/20 rule with the parents of our incoming freshman at orientation. They appreciate having this information!
Doora
I have always wondered what has happen to me in collage! I was spending more time and getting less grades! suddenly the honor student was way behind. I felt so misplaced and since then I doubted myself and the major I have chosen!
I really wish I knew this beforehand!!
Comments are closed.