This study had two aims: (1) to determine whether there were significant differences in the syntax of college freshmen compositions of different overall quality, and (2) to determine whether certain syntactic indexes of writing maturity functioned as indexes of the quality of freshman writing. Two writing samples were elicited from 99 freshmen at Wisconsin State University at the beginning and end of the fall semester, 1967. Both sets of papers were rated by three experienced teachers. From the first sample, 15 "good," 15 "average," and 15 "poor" papers were rated on eight factors, including number, length, and variety of T-units; length of all clauses; ratio of clauses to T-units; number of constructions produced by sentence combining transformations; and main clause patterns. Poor papers of the first sample were most clearly and significantly differentiated from average and good papers by fewer headed nominal constructions. Main clause patterns and the variety of T-unit and clause measurements for the most part did not clearly differentiate poor, average, and good papers. Improved papers (11) from the second sample were compared to their counterparts from the first, and were found to have a greater variety of syntactic features. Content and organization apparently had a more direct bearing on what raters called varied, and improved quality. (Author/MF)