Peer-Mentoring Freshmen: Implications for Satisfaction, Commitment, and Retention to Graduation

Utilizing a 4-year longitudinal design, we examined the impact of a randomly assigned peer-mentoring program, coupled with a freshmen general orientation course, on the attitudes and behaviors of freshmen. Data were gathered four times across students' first year and archivally at entry and again 4 years later. Results showed that students being peer-mentored was related to satisfaction with their university during the semester of the mentoring intervention as well as the end of the following semester, but more mixed results were found in terms of commitment and actual graduation behavior when compared to the nonmentored control group of freshmen who received only the general orientation course. Thus, the mentoring intervention seems to work well for influencing satisfaction but not for actual academic performance indicators such as overall college GPA or graduation.