This study sought to locate excellent readers and excellent reading courses among majors and courses chosen by college freshmen at three postsecondary institutions: a private, residential, suburban, four-year liberal arts college with religious affiliation; a two-year public (commuter) community college outside the same metropolitan area; and an urban, public, Research I university with a primarily commuter undergraduate student body. Courses and majors were clustered, and data collected on 251 college freshmen from the private college in 1988 and from 392 freshmen from the two public institutions in the fall of 1991 (and from 245 of these students for a spring follow-up testing). reported in terms of which college majors comprised better readers, the types of freshmen courses that are taken by better readers, which freshmen courses were associated with the greatest reading gain, and the effect of college developmental courses. Three major trends were identified: (1) the best readers were generally enrolled in non-applied scientific majors and courses; (2) some humanities courses without obvious English prose content (i.e., music and foreign languages) were associated with improved reading skills; and (3) no positive association was found between reading progress and developmental courses. Contains 21 references. (GLR)