The complex problems affecting the transition from secondary to postsecondary education are reviewed by an educator who works with black students from a small, Catholic high school. The following adjustments that students face in college are discussed: a change in the way a student is taught and learns, new levels of responsibility and accountability, new types of educational support systems, different values and a different social system. In the early semesters of college, the student may find it difficult to adjust to a variety of teaching and learning styles in college and to a different type of contact with teachers. Some students lack the maturity to meet daily responsibilities encountered in college, particularly in the absence of familiar support systems. Frequent problems are encountered in dealing with different values within the college community and adjusting socially. A black student at a predominantly white college may experience additional social adjustments. It is advocated that admissions offices recognize and respond to the student's emotional adjustment to college, and that high schools help prepare seniors for these adjustments. Ways that secondary and postsecondary schools may help promote the transition of students, and the special needs of minorities, are briefly addressed. (SW)