The student’s entry into the university setting is marked by several changes and challenges that drive him/her to adopt a new way of dealing with everyday life and with their own expectations. At this time, young people are expected to adapt to different forms of relationship, new study methods, more appropriate ways of managing time, among other challenges (Nogueira-Martins & Nogueira-Martins, 2018; Torres & Almeida, 2021).

Therefore, university students are expected to be able to balance external demands and personal needs. This balance occurs as a result of an adaptation response (Rodríguez & López, 2017) that takes into account the students’ personal, emotional, social, and economic aspects and has been named academic adaptation (Barbosa et al., 2018). Students become more responsible for their own learning process and commit to their own professional lives (Torres & Almeida, 2021). In addition to the curricular aspect, they must be able to face different situations of interpersonal relationships with colleagues and college authorities, manage their own mood, deal with social expectations, and adapt to the institutional characteristics of the University. Furthermore, it is worth noting that many students are required to meet these demands even when facing adverse socioeconomic circumstances (Barbosa et al., 2018).

The literature on higher education enrollment shows that entering university can be enriching in many ways, providing students with experience that allows them to develop their personal, interpersonal, academic, and professional skills (Guerreiro-Casanova & Polydoro, 2010; Soares & Del Prette, 2015). Furthermore, it is understood that learning does not occur independently of self-development, and therefore, the academic results obtained by students are impacted by different factors that are not limited to the classroom or to the learning of the curricular content (Soares et al., 2006). However, not all students are ready to successfully adjust to this new environment, and many have great difficulty dealing with the new demands and necessary changes (Soares & Del Prette, 2015). It is understood that the difficulty in this adaptive process is a determining factor in the educational system drop out phenomenon (Almeida et al., 2019), which characterizes a loss both for the student and for society as a whole. Given the diverse nature of the academic adaptation process, it is necessary to take into account the contextual and interpersonal characteristics of students in this process.

Soares et al. (2006) developed the Modelo Multidimensional de Ajustamento de Jovens ao Contexto Universitário (Multidimensional Model of Young People’s Adaptation to the University Context), which resulted from a review of theory and research in the area, aiming to combine interpersonal and contextual factors in understanding how young people adjust to university. The authors consider that academic success is not restricted to the dimensions of learning, but also to those of psychological development. Academic expectations appeared to be an effective predictor of engagement in university life, just as the quality of the learning environment appeared to affect levels of engagement, well-being and satisfaction.

However, these relationships were not sufficient to influence the psychosocial development and academic performance of students, which seemed to be predicted mainly by the application score for entry into higher education and psychosocial development by the level of autonomy upon entering university. Thus, theory and research revealed that personal and institutional characteristics and the interaction established between them are important factors to be considered in the academic adaptation, although specificities were identified in Science and Technology students or Social Sciences and Humanities students, highlighting the importance of the level of involvement in academic life for the latter and the level of emotional and instrumental autonomy for the former (Soares et al., 2006).

Since university adaptation is marked by personal and contextual variables, academic and non-academic factors must be taken into account (Soares et al., 2006), justifying the commitment to studies focusing the phenomenon in question from different perspectives, preventing low adherence to the Institution and evasion and abandonment of the course. It is important to highlight, with regard to national economic reach, that entering and remaining in college allows, through professional training, better insertion in the job market. In terms of individual economic development, continuing studies allows for better working conditions, better salaries, and higher personal and family income (Ambiel et al., 2021), resulting in a better quality of life.

Given that there are not only personal but also social impacts of continuing higher education, it is important to present the different systems in which educational institutions participate and, therefore, where university experiences take place. In Brazil, the Higher Education System is composed of institutions of different nature, either private or public. Private institutions can be maintained by private entities, whether for-profit or not, and public institutions are those maintained by the federal, state, and municipal governments. Considering these types of institutions, it is assumed that admission to universities with different characteristics should not be understood in the same way. In fact, studies have pointed to differences in academic adaptation between students attending public and private universities (Monteiro & Soares, 2017; Soares et al., 2009; Soares, Monteiro, et al., 2019), showing that students at public institutions tend to present, in general, better academic adaptation. Soares, Monteiro, et al. (2019) point out that students from public institutions tend to deal more adequately with colleagues and professors, gaining a support that can be a differential in relation to students from private institutions. Acceptance at a public university seems to promote expectations not only of admission, but also of permanence, considering that these institutions have a strong tradition in teaching, research and extension.

Soares et al. (2009) also identified better academic adaptation in students from public institutions, showing that they feel more self-confident, in addition to receiving support from their families and the institution in which they are enrolled. In addition, students are also proud of their successful admission to a public university, considering the stiffer competition in public universities admission; also students often perceive recognition from their families for this achievement, facilitating adaptation. However, the authors also identified greater personal autonomy and physical well-being in students from private institutions, most of whom attended night classes. Based on this result, it is understood that the fact that these students work and finance their own studies may contribute to a greater perception of personal autonomy. It can therefore be considered that institutional characteristics play an important role in adaptation to higher education, since students are often faced with concepts, pressures, and expectations associated with the type of institution they attend.

Attending a higher education institution, whether public or private, is a great achievement for most students, but the sense of belonging does not release them from internal and external pressures. Without sufficient behavioral and emotional repertoires, many will deal inadequately with pressures and demands that can often lead to high levels of stress (Santos et al., 2019). According to Marchini et al. (2019), undergraduate students face an array of academic demands that are understood as a factor that impacts university students’ quality of life. Those authors also point out that such demands can be understood as chronic stressors when students are faced with difficult frameworks in which they do not have the cognitive or behavioral repertoire to deal with. Several authors have also focused on studying stress in this context (Ariño & Bardagi, 2018; Delabrida et al., 2018; Torquato et al., 2010); stress can be understood as a body reaction to situations or confrontations that somehow cause irritation, fear, excitement or confusion (Lipp & Guevara, 1994).

Graner and Cerqueira (2019), in an integrative review, assessed 37 empirical studies published in the last five years aiming to identify risk and protective factors for psychological distress in university students. Among the risk factors, the presence of stress in categories related to academic life and health is noted. Certain coping strategies, sense of coherence, vigor, resilience and self-efficacy were identified as protective factors. The latter is an element of Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory that concerns a personal deduction which is the result of several personal and environmental factors that result in the judgment that the subject makes of his own abilities to take the initiative necessary to achieve a certain performance considered satisfactory (Bandura, 1997; Pajares & Olaz, 2008).

Self-efficacy in higher education can be translated as the students’ perception of their own abilities to acquire, demonstrate and expand course content, plan and set goals, make academic choices, regulate their actions in the learning process, take advantage of opportunities in the academic environment, relate to colleagues and teachers both socially and academically and meet deadlines related to academic activities (Polydoro & Guerreiro-Casanova, 2010). Self-efficacy plays an important role in academic adaptation, as it has been related to aspects such as greater academic satisfaction, ability to schedule regular learning, greater academic motivation, higher academic performance levels, higher levels of social skills, lower levels of procrastination and lower levels of stress (Dalbosco et al., 2018, Dominguez-Lara & Fernández-Arata, 2019; Lopes et al., 2020; Loricchio & Leite, 2012, Mafla et al., 2019; Matta et al., 2017; Rosinha & de Andrade Júnior, 2020; Santos et al., 2019). Students who perceive themselves as more self-efficacious prefer to develop more challenging tasks and set more demanding goals, investing more in their tasks and undertaking greater levels of effort and persistence, in addition to overcoming difficulties and maintaining focus on the goals (Santos et al., 2019).

Therefore, self-efficacy beliefs are essential for healthy adaptation to university, motivating students to set goals and pursue them more actively. However, it is known that these beliefs do not ensure the skills necessary to obtain favorable results in the academic environment: for example, the belief of being able to establish social relationships with peers is essential to ensure the effort made by the student, but it does not guarantee social resourcefulness on the part of the individual. Therefore, it is important to investigate behaviors that can be facilitators in the academic setting, such as social skills. The concept of social skills refers to social behaviors that are valued in a given cultural context, yielding favorable results for the individuals and their environment (Del Prette & Del Prette, 2017).

Soares and Del Prette (2015) stated that a good repertoire of social skills could contribute to the quality of academic experience and academic performance. Social skills can be learned and are important for dealing with interpersonal interactions in a socially competent manner. They can be related to communication skills, civility, assertiveness, expression of positive feelings, and professional social skills (Del Prette & Del Prette, 2017). The quality of social and interpersonal interactions are essential in the pursuit of institutional goals, in addition to being involved in the student’s leadership skills, the power of persuasion or disagreement, the ability to deal with criticism, problem-solving, etc. A deficit in these skills can hinder the learning process, especially with regard to academic responsibilities that involve mutual cooperation and self-exposure (Gomes & Soares, 2013).

Soares, da Silva, et al. (2019) sought to verify how the variables academic expectations, social skills, maturity for professional choice and career education are associated with academic adaptation in Higher Education with students entering the Psychology course. The authors concluded that more satisfactory adaptation was associated with more realistic levels of academic expectations, better career education and a better repertoire of social skills.

It is therefore understood that university adaptation depends on individual and contextual factors. Research that seeks to understand these characteristics together is still scarce, especially with regard to the variables assessed in this study. In this connection, the investigation of how different factors can impact students’ academic adaptation is justified by the need to develop resources that can facilitate this adaptation, mitigating the possible psychological suffering of university students and mainly preventing the dropout of these students, which is harmful to both their personal development and to society, with the loss of qualified professionals. In view of the above, the present study aimed to: 1) verify the relationship between the variables academic adaptation, stress, self-efficacy and social skills, 2) compare the variables between groups of students from private and public institutions and 3) identify the predictive power of the explanatory variables stress, self-efficacy and social skills in the criterion variable academic adaptation.