Abstract

Students in colleges of agriculture enroll through a variety of academic routes and with different previous experiences. Some students enroll directly into the college of agriculture while others transfer from community colleges and still others transfer from other colleges within the universities. Further, a proportion of students have completed agriscience programs in high school while the majority have not. Students who have completed agriscience programs tend to be from smaller and more rural high schools, purportedly with fewer opportunities to achieve academic success. Universities may consider those students to be less qualified for admission. In a comparison of 1,647 Rank 4 (senior) students who were enrolled in a high school agriscience program and those who had not revealed that few differences appear in their academic abilities prior to enrollment and their academic status at the time of completion of the degree program. Colleges should be more proactive in recruiting students from the relatively untapped resource of students who have been enrolled in high school agriscience programs.