Incoming West Virginia college freshmen rank second as the most college-ready in the country, according to a recent study by Brainly, a New York peer-to-peer learning community.
Allison Baron, a Brainly spokesperson, said earlier this month Brainly conducted an internal, proprietary survey of 1,000 U.S. students ages 17 to 20 who graduated high school during the previous calendar school year and plan to attend college in the fall.
Arkansas topped the list of most college-ready states. At third was Wisconsin, followed by South Carolina, Oklahoma, Iowa, Minnesota, Alabama, Missouri and New York.
“The state of West Virginia’s high school graduation rate is 89.4%, which is significantly higher than the national average of 84.6%,” Baron said. “In looking at all of the top 10 states where students said they felt most college ready, one common characteristic across all of them is that the high school graduation rates for each are above the national average.”
On the flip side, Brainly said the top 10 states where incoming freshmen felt they were the least prepared was led by Alaska, followed by Rhode Island, Nebraska, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Indiana, New Mexico, New Jersey and Illinois.
“The incoming freshmen who responded to the survey were a representative sample across the U.S. in terms of geography, demographics, income levels, etc.” Baron said. “The states that ranked highest in the ‘College Ready Index’ were the states where the largest majority of respondents said they felt adequately prepared to start college in the fall.”
In the survey, Brainly said 64% of incoming freshmen worry about failing a college class, while 57% are worried about not being able to manage their course load. Another 35% are worried about managing their time between classes, while 31% are worried about the difficulty of their classes. Lastly, more than 75% of college freshmen said they would like to know where to find help with homework and studying, 29% said they would seek a professor’s help, 25% would go to peers and 20% said they would seek help online.
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