Academics: Believe It or Not                   

As thousands of students head off to college, they will take with them a newfound freedom and added responsibilities. And with all the conflicting issues that come along with this new venture, schoolwork - surprisingly - is very much on their minds.

A new survey of college students revealed that students still want to do well in school above other achievements. When asked which of four wishes they would want if a genie could grant them just one wish, excellence in academia won by a large margin. Over half (56 percent) would wish for a 4.0 grade point average for the semester while a far distant second (17 percent) would want a new car.

And students apparently are prepared for the intellectual rigors of coursework. The study also revealed that college seems to be holding no surprises for most college students. Although just less than one-third (31%) of the students polled feel that college is harder than what they anticipated, the majority (55%) said that college is shaping up to be about what they expected.

The survey also shows that family ties and keeping in touch with special people in their lives is important to college students. Almost two-thirds of students (63 percent), regardless of gender or school year, say that calling home just to chat and keep in touch is the primary reason they call home. This is more than twice as much as the next reason for calling home: to tell parents something specific. Less than 8% of the students said they called home specifically to ask for money or advice.

Here are some tips for parents and college-bound students:

  1.   Don't set expectations too high

      Parents are especially concerned about the well being of their children as they leave the nest and head off to be on their own at college. They may be grown up. They may be gone. But parents still want to know what's going on in their child's life. Likewise, a recent survey of college students reveals that college students want to keep in touch with people important to them-their family, their friends. So it's important to make it easy and convenient.

  2.   Establish a time to call

      One way to help ease parents anxiety and make the transition smoother for college-bound students is to have a set day and time for parents and kids to talk. With an agreed upon time to talk, the pressure for parents is lessened. Many college students stay connected using calling cards and convenient prepaid cards..

  3. Let them alone, but don't let them be lonely

      With anytime, anywhere communication, people can call people no matter where they are. So for those times when your child is away at college and just wants to talk, consider 800 numbers, wireless communications and communicating over the Internet.

One other option is a collect call. If your child needs to make a collect call, they can dial 1-800-CALL-ATT, prompt 2, to place a collect call to you over the AT&T network.

The study was conducted by International Communications Research (ICR) on May 1 through May 10, 1998 among 500 randomly selected samples of current college students throughout the country.

For more information about AT&T's special offers for college students, go online to www.att.com.

Source: AT&T