This study focused on how self-efficacy and a student's self-assessed level of preparation for college level English impacted their success in a first-year composition course at a community college. The purpose of this study was to uncover the factors that led to successful writers with a focus on self-efficacy and collegiate writing. The research focused on how a student's self-assessed level of preparation for their first-year college composition course impacted other aspects of self-efficacy and student success such as a student's self-apprehensiveness and the student's perception of their prior teacher's effectiveness. The study utilized a purely quantitative research method to analyze the Research Question. The Research Question was answered with a statistically significant Pearson Correlation Coefficient at the 0.01 level.