Copyright © 2012 Jill M. Norvilitis and Howard M. Reid. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The present study utilized 217 student participants to examine academic, circumstantial, and personal predictors of four categories of college success. Although study skills were most important in predicting grade point average, other factors, including parental encouragement of intellectual curiosity during childhood, ADHD symptomatology, appreciation of the liberal arts, and varying motives to attend college, were also predictive of success, as indicated by measures of academic adjustment, social adjustment, and satisfaction with life. The results replicate previous research indicating that study skills, ADHD symptomatology, and motives to attend college are predictors of various measures of college success and extend prior work by establishing a relationship between college success and two additional variables, parental encouragement of intellectual curiosity and the correspondence between student and institutional values.