The Relation Among College-going Culture in High Schools, Academic Mindset, and College Success

Data from 369 former public high school students attending the University of Illinois at Chicago were used to test a predicted mediation of the relation between college-going culture in high schools and college students’ academic success through students’ academic mindset. The statistical method used was multilevel mediation with full information maximum likelihood estimation, including two levels of analysis (i.e., students nested within high schools). I applied psychological theories of social support and self-efficacy to explain the mediation. Contrary to predictions, students’ academic mindset did not mediate the relation between college-going culture and college success. There was, however, a significant direct effect of college-going culture on college success for one indicator of college-going culture (i.e., the proportion of students in AP courses in a particular high school predicted college grades and credits earned), and both academic mindset indicators significantly predicted college success (i.e., self-efficacy predicted college GPA and credits earned, and sense of belonging predicted retention to the second year of college). Implications for research and practice are discussed.