Just the facts

Making the transition from high school to college has always been challenging - ask any student or parent who has been through it, especially the first year! Experts go even farther, showing how the first year of college is also the most dangerous.

Take a look at a recent USA Today study (December 2005) on deaths on campus (they reviewed 620 deaths since 2000 at 2 and 4 year schools):

*Freshmen are uniquely vulnerable accounting for more than one-third of undergraduate deaths in the study, although they are only 24% of the undergraduates at those institutions, according to National Center for Education Statistics data analyzed by the American Council on Education for USA TODAY.

*Freshmen die at higher rates from illness, accounting for 40% of undergraduate deaths from natural causes.

*They're more likely to take their own lives; they account for 40% of all undergraduate suicides.

*They represent half of all undergraduate deaths from falls from windows, balconies and rooftops.

*More of them die on school property; 47% of the undergraduates who die on campus are freshmen. This statistic has proven the most surprising, and disturbing, to analysts, experts and parents who imagine the campus to be idyllic. And safe.

Coming prepared to drink