How confident are today’s college freshmen from African American, Asian, and other backgrounds?

Incoming first-year students’ differing academic confidence levels by race/ethnicity, shown above, illustrate the importance of equipping different segments of freshmen with the resources they need for growth and development.

As this table/chart shows, incoming first-year students’ math and verbal confidence tends to vary by race/ethnicity, with Black/African American students and American Indian/Alaskan Native students expressing the highest level of concern that “Math has always been a challenge,” while Asian/Pacific Islander students indicated the highest level of concern about their writing skills, as expressed in the statement, “I have difficulty organizing my ideas in a paper, and I tend to make a lot of punctuation and grammar mistakes.”

These data, and many other contrasts, can be found in Noel-Levitz’s 2012 Addendum by Race/Ethnicity, included with our 2012 National Freshman Attitudes Report.

Additional excerpts from the reports that show incoming first-year students’ differing academic needs by race/ethnicity include:

My understanding of the physical sciences is very weak.
Black/African-American: 28.3%
Hispanic/Latino: 30.2%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 25.9%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 24.7%
White/Caucasian: 23.8%

I have a very good understanding of general biology (e.g. cell structure, metabolism, genetics, and the circulatory system)Black/African-American: 38%
Hispanic/Latino: 38%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 39%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 45%
White/Caucasian: 38%

I would like to receive some help in improving my study habits.

Black/African-American: 75%
Hispanic/Latino: 69%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 69%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 61%
White/Caucasian: 49%

I would like to receive tutoring in one or more of my courses.

Black/African-American: 60%
Hispanic/Latino: 53%
Asian/Pacific Islander: 53%
American Indian/Alaskan Native: 46%
White/Caucasian: 35%

In addition to the above findings, the Addendum by Race/Ethnicity covers a wide range of attitudes that influence student success, including incoming first-year students’ desire to finish college, desire to transfer to another college, opinion tolerance, career closure, family emotional support, sense of financial security, receptivity to social enrichment, and more.

The data in the reports are drawn from this year’s study of 94,202 incoming first-year college students at 315 colleges and universities nationwide.