Relationships among Nevada-FIT Camps, High School Grade Point Average, and Gender

Abstract

College readiness, the level of preparation students need to enroll and succeed without remediation in credit bearing entry level coursework at a two or four-year institution, increasingly is an expectation for all high school students, not just students who have been traditionally considered college-bound. Numerous studies have documented the importance of high school grade point average (HSGPA) in predicting college readiness. However, even with the best of high school preparation, the transition to postsecondary education can be difficult. To facilitate the transition from high school to university level study, the University of Nevada, Reno has developed a Nevada-Freshman Intensive Transition (Nevada-FIT) program. A robust evaluation of the program is being conducted; however, a question not addressed in the evaluation is the academic characteristics of the incoming students. Using existing institutional data of 404 students from the Fall of 2014 Nevada-FIT camp, a quantitative, descriptive analysis with a post-facto design using the one way ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis H test, and an independent t test was conducted. Demographic characteristics of the participating freshmen students were reported. Findings indicated that overall mean HSGPA was high with significant differences between the six groups as well as gender. Implications for recruitment of students to Nevada-FIT are presented.