Academic Preparedness
Academic
preparedness is the easiest to determine. What are your child’s current
skill levels in writing, reading, and math? Find this by having your
child take the ACT test fall or spring of junior year or by having your
child go to the local community college and take the COMPASS test. You
can then compare your child’s ACT or COMPASS scores to ACT’s College
Readiness Benchmarks.
The ACT
College Readiness Benchmarks are the ACT test scores required for
students to have a high probability of success in the credit-bearing
(not remedial) college courses many students typically take in their
first year of college. These first-year courses include English
composition, social science courses such as American history and
psychology, biology, and college algebra. ACT has done extensive
research on college readiness. The benchmark numbers are the minimum ACT
or COMPASS scores that students would need to achieve in order to have a
50 percent chance of earning a grade of B or better or a 75 percent
chance of earning a C or better in the corresponding college courses.
The ACT looks at English, reading, math, and science skills, while the
COMPASS looks at English, reading, and math. Do an Internet search for
“ACT college readiness benchmarks” to see a chart of benchmark scores.
Another aspect
of academic success in college is what high school counselors call the
ability to “play school.” This is your child’s ability to adapt to the
norms and culture of the institution, whether high school or college, in
order to achieve academic goals. The ability to “play school” includes
doing homework outside of class, turning in assignments on time, meeting
teacher expectations, engaging in classroom discussions constructively,
asking questions, getting along with teachers, using the library and
online resources, managing time, and meeting multiple project deadlines.
All of these behaviors shape the “habits of mind” needed for success in
college. How well does your child “play school” in high school? How
well do you think she will “play school” in college?
One
indicator is how much time your child is spending on homework outside
class during her junior and senior year in high school. Students who
attend college will be expected to spend at least two hours per week of
outside study time for each credit hour of class. A student who is
taking 15 college credit hours will need to budget at least 30 outside
study hours each week to be successful in those classes. This amount of
independent study can be a shock for an academically strong student
attending college for the first time. It can be a time-management
disaster for a student who is not accustomed to doing any homework at
all.
Another
indicator of your child’s academic readiness for college is her success
in high school math. Almost all bachelor’s degrees require college
algebra or another course in quantitative reasoning. To avoid taking
remedial math courses in college and the corresponding delay in
completing a degree, your child should take as much math as possible in
high school, including a math course senior year. Studies show that one
year of high school math beyond algebra II can increase your child’s
chances of completing a bachelor’s degree by 50 percent.
A
third indicator of your child’s readiness for college is how well she
can write. College students are expected to produce numerous short
papers, as well as longer research papers, in a variety of classes, not
just in English classes. Going into college, your child will be expected
to read unfamiliar material, analyze it, and respond critically in
writing. She will be expected to write quickly and concisely in response
to essay test questions. How well does your child write? Has she
written a research paper in high school in which she has referenced
multiple sources using a standardized writing style guide? Your child
should be comfortable and confident in her writing skills when she goes
to college in order to be successful.
Social/Emotional Preparedness
Social/emotional preparedness is the second factor you need to look at in assessing your child’s readiness for college.
This is a more
subjective matter than academic preparedness. It involves your child’s
resilience and resourcefulness and her ability to set personal
boundaries and make good choices in a new, unregulated environment. It
is about how sensible, practical, and organized your child is and how
easy or hard it is for her to make new friends, ask for help, and be
open to new interests.
College,
and especially the transition to college freshman year, is stressful.
Many parents romanticize their own college experience as a sort of
idyllic break between childhood and adult responsibilities. But college
was stressful back when you were in school, and it is stressful for
young people today. More students who are academically underprepared for
college are attending college today. These students, along with their
more academically prepared counterparts, are taking on much more debt
than students 20 years ago to pay for college. Young people experience
stressors that didn’t exist when you were in school. Errors of judgment
in the party scene that would have caused you private remorse 20 years
ago can be recorded on a cell phone and publicly shared on the Internet.
Going away to college means leaving a support system behind and
creating a new one. How well do you think your child will handle this
challenge?
Step back and think
about your child. What are her personal strengths and weaknesses? As you
imagine her in a new college environment, how well do you think she
will do making new friends? Will she have a support system already in
place in terms of friends from home attending the same college? Will
these friends be a positive or negative influence? Is she likely to join
campus groups of students who share similar interests? Will she be
joining a sorority and have a new support system there? How well do you
think she will handle situations in which alcohol is involved? Does she
have a track record of setting healthy personal boundaries in
unregulated social situations? Do you anticipate your child being
homesick or “friend-sick” in that she will be emotionally focused on
family and friends in other locations and not fully engaged in her new
environment?
These are all things to consider in making the decision about where to send your child to school.
