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Over the past several decades, student transitions have become a primary focus for many higher education staff and faculty. Not surprisingly, these educators have concerned themselves primarily with the transition into college, because high first-year attrition numbers reflect how challenging this transition is for many new students. Attention has also been given to the senior-year transition, because it is the last opportunity institutions have to ensure that students are adequately prepared for the working world or graduate school. Researchers focus on beginning and ending transitions by exploring the needs, behaviors, and expectations of both first-year students and seniors through national and institution-specific surveys such as the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey and the National Survey of Student Engagement and by assessing the outcomes of targeted programs such as first-year and senior seminars.The same research focus has not been given to the sophomore and junior years. There is no national instrument that specifically explores student issues and concerns in the middle years of the collegiate experience. The lack of research on the junior year is particularly striking given the importance of the junior year in a student's college experience. Traditionally the junior year is the time when students are finally able to focus on courses in their major, and it is often when students engage in special experiential opportunities such as internships, extended service opportunities, and study abroad. In addition, these students have the bulk of the leadership responsibilities on many campuses through service as peer leaders, mentors, and resident advisors. However, given the absence of both research 59 6

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Understanding the prime‐time television portrait of college helps educators better understand the expectations our entering students may hold of college life.

College expectations play an important role in students ' success at an institution. Braxton et al . (1994) found that if expectations are met, students are more likely to persist than if they are unmet. One potential contributor to college expectations is media ( Tobolowsky, 2001 ). Prior research concludes that colleges that play in bowl games experience application spikes. However, there has been little research on the institution-produced public service announcements (PSAs) that air during those games and may contribute to the college expectations of entering students. This study analyzes the campus PSAs in 27 bowl games over two years, 2003 -2004 and 2004 -2005, to better understand the college portrait in these unique media offerings.