First Year Insight Program

Albertus Magnus College (CT)

Through the First Year Insight Program, first-year students at Albertus Magnus College take a seminar designed to promote academic success. All students also enroll in two writing-intensive humanities seminars that stress collaborative learning and develop the core knowledge and skills needed to excel academically.

At-risk students take three courses in common, and assignments are designed across courses. Additionally, they participate in a reading lab twice a week throughout the first year. Peer mentors meet with the students weekly to assist in coursework. Honors students, likewise, take three courses in common each term.

Bottom Line: There was a five-percent increase in first- to second-year retention in 2010. In the past two years, testing has found a statistically significant increase in reading ability by the end of the students' first year.