First year students, like all students at a university, comprise a diverse mixture of personal traits, backgrounds, experiences, and assorted learning styles. Each of these unique student characteristics can either enhance or inhibit successful integration to the campus community. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of various first year programs on student retention. The study examined nine first year programs. The presence or absence of these first year programs were compared to the retention rate of first year students at several liberal arts colleges in the southern Appalachian Mountains of the United States.