The results of an informal, random survey that examined the freshman English offerings in 23 two-year and four-year colleges are contained in this paper. Among the findings reported are the following: (1) the majority of schools surveyed used a placement test of some kind, and over half required students to enroll in a particular course based on test scores; (2) the majority of schools used a rhetoric handbook and a book of essays or a combination of the two; (3) the number of papers students were required to write ranged from four to twelve per course; (4) verbal communication skills received little or no emphasis in most courses; (5) developmental English courses were of major concern to most schools; (6) the importance of individual student conferences was stressed by most schools; (7) systems for evaluating students' written work differed from school to school; and (8) several schools offered a library research paper course that focused exclusively on the techniques for writing such a paper. Appendixes contain a copy of the questionnaire used in the survey, along with the number of responses to each question and a list of schools responding to the survey. (FL)