Chapter 4: Negotiating the Transition From High School to College: Two Narrative Accounts

College-bound high school seniors carry emotional, self-image, social, and academic baggage with them when they transition to the first college year. Transitioning students who come from families with a long history of college attendance, degree attainment, and professional careers bring the expectation that they will continue the tradition of postsecondary success. Upper middle-class American White male students who come from such families are uniquely equipped for success given the long history of White male privilege firmly established in American culture. However, women have outnumbered men in college applications and enrollment for the last 40 years (Carbonaro et al., 2011; Riegle-Crumb, 2010; Rocheleau, 2016), which has increased the expectation that female high school seniors will attend postsecondary institutions as a matter of course. Meanwhile, the experience for male students has become increasingly more fraught with self-doubt and disengagement (Turner, 2016). In short, the pressure to succeed and “fit in” at a college or university at age 18 has made the transition year more difficult for both males and females over the last two generations.