This document is a study of the importance of affective variables and the implications of these variables in student success or failure. A 28 item questionnaire was administered to 30 college students enrolled in a compensatory education program. The questionnaire assessed attitudes toward professors, administrators, peers, toward relevance of school, and toward program services. Results indicated a relationship between attitudes toward school and performance. Namely, those groups of students showing negative attitudes were those who cut classes, avoided administrators and who did not use the services offered by the school. These very tentative findings are important to compensatory education programs. These programs select students from disadvantaged backgrounds who show high potential for academic success. The difficulty lies in identifying these students. Standard instruments are culturally biased and are of little use in predicting academic performance. The literature has reported on four ways to resolve the issue of students recruitment: social Darwinism, middle class-ification, institutional change, and new admissions criteria. The inclusion of performance on certain attitudinal scales as one measure of future success is endorsed in this paper. These scales are described briefly. (Author/AM)