The findings indicate that students were sensitive to a schools' ambience and that the association of various aspects of the school's physical environment with students' problem behaviors is greater for 10th grade students than for 8th and 12th grade students. The implications of these findings for school policies and practices are also discussed. The study hypothesized that an attractive physical environment would be associated with less truancy, cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use, whereas a negative physical environment would be associated with higher levels of these behaviors. The work examined the influence of the schools’ physical environment measured in terms of both attractive and neglected material characteristics; areas that existed in and around school where students could remain unobserved and unsupervised; and certain characteristics of the neighborhood surrounding the school. The analyses used data from nationally representative samples of 8th, 10th, and 12th grade students who participated in annual surveys conducted by the Monitoring the Future project from 2000 to 2003. Analyses also used data collected from principals and field interviewers of the same schools. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires in classrooms by locally based University of Michigan representatives. The results were based on multilevel logistic and linear regressions. Tables, appendix, and references