College students, as the successors of the socialist cause, are the main force to realize the great
rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. In order to study current college students’ views on outstanding
college students, this study conducted a qualitative analysis based on grounded theory. This study adopts
interview method and NVivo software for coding analysis, and draws two main conclusions: (1) from the
perspective of college students, the two core typical characteristics of excellent college students are “Own
Characteristics” and “External Evaluation”, among which the most important is “Own Characteristics”;
(2) “Own Characteristics” includes six concept categories of “Moral Conduct”, “Ability and Quality”,
“Professional Performance”, “Activity Participation”, “Development Effect” and “Role Experience and
Training”; “External Evaluation” includes two concept categories: “Certificate” and “Award”. This study is
helpful to enrich the understanding of the characteristics of excellent college students and put forward
more constructive suggestions to optimize the talent training program and students’ own development
plan.