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It's Getting Cold, and All Around the Country, Bright College Students are Getting Ready to FAIL their Midterm Exams
By Eric Drown, Ph.D. Learn why even academically well-prepared students are at risk to fail or underperform on crucial end-of-the-semester exams, papers, and projects. The answer has nothing to do with how smart they are, or what they have learned in the semester. With final exams and projects being worth 30%, 40%, or even 60% of a course grade, it's vital that students receive the support they need to excel at the end of the semester. But few colleges and universities systematically prepare students for the rigors and challenges of the exam period. And, in my experience, many professors feel little to no responsibility for students' success. In fact, a few take pride in weeding out the "stupid." Not entirely students' fault, these needless early failures in college permanently weaken GPAs. They can also result in academic probation, suspension, or plagiarism. The worst result of all is the damage to students' confidence in their ability to excell at school, confidence that takes a long time, and skilled, careful guidance, to restore. So why do so many students needlessly fail--especially in their first 3 semesters in college? Some of the answer can be attributed to a mismatch between students' learning expectations and faculty's. In this blog posting, Dale Yerpe, an English Professor at Jamestown Community College draws on years of experience to explain how students' disposition towards the college-level work assigned to them often sabotages their ability to work hard. According to Professor Yerpe, students who fail:
"Aim for the least they must do [to pass the course]." "Overestimate how much credit they can generate in the last few weeks of the course."
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 "Overestimate the grade they have already earned." [Refuse to believe explicitly course policies and advice for attendance, no 'extra-credit',

how much prep-time is required.]

"Trust in what worked in high school: particularly in terms of high school standards,

but also high school study methods, amount of homework, self-esteem grading, layers of safety nets, and a conviction that the responsibility for students passing the course rested with the faculty and not the students."

In my experience, much of what Professor Yerpe says is true. But more important than that is that his view is representative of the ideals and attitudes of lots of the university faculty I've met. It's crucial to understand that faculty collectively define what "student success" means at the university. Most faculty have gone through years of rigorous academic apprenticeship and come to the classroom with the incredible facility in analysis, problem-solving, creative-but-disciplined thinking that is indispensible for people who's life work it is to create new knowledge. As a result, their expectations about what skills, habits of mind, and disciplines are necessary for academic success are much more specific and demanding (which is not to say "higher") than even the most rigorous high school teacher. Consequently, Professor Yerpe's last point--about failing students tendendency to trust what worked in high school--is of particular importance. In the first few years, many college students believe that college is just incremently more difficult that college, whereas, most faculty I know would say it is an order of magnitude more complicated). To be very successful in the learning situations they're likely to encounter in college, students need to do more than simply accept and adapt to the new expectations and learning responsibilities placed on them by their faculty, they need to embrace the values of the academic institution they're living within. Because of this mismatch between student/faculty expectations, it's also true that students consistently underestimate both the value and the complexity of the tasks facing them. (And, to be frank, many professors misestimate the source of the value of

what they're asking undergraduate students to do, locating the value in content rather than process or skill development). As a result, students allocate too little time to complete their work effectively and to the high standards demanded of them. I have seen some students, unable to meet faculty standards using the strategies that made them really successful high school students (and earning, perhaps, the first C or D or F of their academic lives!), decide that faculty standards are idiosyncratic and unreasonable (which largely they are not) and take a cynical attitude towards their work, thereby setting themselves up for failure. This understandable but ultimately unproductive disposition isn't the only challenge students face at the end of the semester. Consider that by the last weeks of class:
Students are inevitably deeply tired from weeks of late-nights of hard (but often

ineffective) work.
The vast majority of students fuel their efforts with sugar, caffeine and worse! Stress-relieving exercise becomes a low priority. Last-week classes (where course wrap-up, reviews, and exam-prep are being done) get

skipped to make time for paper-writing and cramming, or just to catch up on sleep.
Lots of students are literally sick (and the few first- or second-year college students

who know how to access student-health-services are reluctant to take the time to use them).

The upshot is this: as exams approach, students are at their mental, intellectual, and physical weakest. They may have had their confidence and optimism tempered by academic or personal struggles, too-cool-for-school attitudes of peers, or indifferent instruction. So what can be done about this situation? How can students finish their first few semesters strongly and acquire the habits, skills, and discipline they need to be successful throughout their college career and beyond? Students need to match their expectations to those of their faculty, and they need frequent coaching and support to enable them to adapt and embrace the highly-specialized intellectual values of a highlyunique institution--the university.