College Preparedness Essay

Todays students face a world influenced by a global economy, technological advances and quick changes in the way we sh atomic number 18 tuition, communicate and conduct business. It has never been more(prenominal) critical to sponsor them build the intimacy, skills, behaviors and awargonness necessary to succeed in college and beyond. better postsecondary success for all our citizens, precisely most urgently for low-income and minority students, is vital to our nations economic and social health, and global competitiveness.Yet, college remediation and completion range suggest that many students leave high shallow without the skills and knowledge required to succeed in postsecondary education. (media. collegeboard. com/Feb. 26,2013) College today means much more than just move a four- year degree at a university. Being college- expeditious means being prepared for any postsecondary education or training experience, including study at two- and four-year institutions leading t o a postsecondary credential (i.e. a certificate, license, Associates or Bachelors degree).Being ready for college means that a high school graduate has the side and mathematics knowledge and skills necessary to qualify for and succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing college courses without the film for remedial coursework. Although students have ambitious educational and career aspirations, many lack prefatory knowledge about how to fulfill their postsecondary goals.Many students and their parents fail to plan because they do not have the essential information resources, personal support networks, and structured computer programs they need to effectively perform educational and postsecondary planning activities (Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000 Hrabowski et al. , 1998 McDonough, 1997). Some students and their parents have a vague understanding or hold misconceptions about high school course requirements for college admission, the importance of teachers in college planning, and college tu ition costs (Choy, Horn, Nunez, & Chen, 2000 Hrabowski, Maton, Greene, & Greif, 2002 Schneider & Stevenson, 1999Venezia et al., 2003). (www. aypf. org/ Feb. 27,2013) There are multiple steps that students and their parents fag take to successfully plan for postsecondary education and dumbfound college ready. These steps build upon one another to help students make the transition from secondary to postsecondary education and training (McDonough, 1997).The early stages of postsecondary planning give notice include, but are not limited to 1) Considering postsecondary education, 2) Deciding to att decease college, 3) Maintaining goodgrades, 4) Gathering information about the college admissions process (including college admissions tests), 5) Discussing educational and career goals with counselors, teachers, and parents, 6) Obtaining information about colleges and academic programs, 7) Obtaining information about financial supporter opportunities, and 8) Exploring college major and c areer interests. (www. act. org/Feb. 27,2013)Schools should provide the tools, information, and resources to guide students and their parents by means of the postsecondary planning process and make successful educational transitions.And it is important for schools to bulge out this planning process by the middle school years. This early educational planning burn guide students experiences in middle and high school and help them make informed educational decisions. A key aspect of early educational planning involves the exploration of educational and work options. Students have many postsecondary choices, including biyearly colleges, certificate programs, four-year colleges, the military, and employment.They often begin taking steps to make their educational goals a reality by taking college preparatory courses, maintaining good grades in these courses, dynamic in extracurricular activities, and learning about ways to finance postsecondary education (Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000). And they may regularly engage in conversations about their futures with their friends, parents, teachers, and counselors (McDonough, 1997). College Costs. Most parents regard that a college education is the best investment they can make for their infantren (Miller, 1997).Developing a plan to pay college costs is an essential part of early educational planning, often leading students and parents to discuss college costs, look various colleges and their academic programs, and explore financial aid opportunities (Hossler, Schmit, & Vesper, 1999). However, many parents neglect or are un adequate to lighten money, or do not have a plan to pay for college when their children are young. These families may perceive that they cannot afford college. Many students and parents also lack knowledge and information about college costs and options of paying for postsecondary education.Even among high school juniors and seniors who plan to attend college, few have accurate information about colleg e costs. Schools can help students develop educational goals by providing career and postsecondary planning information, beginning in the middle school. Counselors, teachers, principals, and other school personnel often influence students educational goals and postsecondary planning. Throughout their school years, most students take standardized achievement tests and complete career interest measures to assess academic proceeding and assist in postsecondary planning.Schools can integrate test information into the course selection process to show students how test results align with mobroom performance and what academic skills they need to develop through future courses. Counselors and teachers can review assessment results with students and parents to guide course selection and placement in the proper course level to fit the students academic expression and achievement (Wimberly, 2003). Low-income parents and students often report that they do not receive adequate information abo ut financial aid.They often lack knowledge about the occupation process and what financial aid is available to them. Consequently, low-income parents and students may not develop a college finance plan (Cabrera & La Nasa, 2000). Many high achieving low-income students are more apparent to enter the military than college because of failing to develop a plan to pay for college costs (Choy, 2000). Popular media stories about rising tuition costs and work out cuts at colleges and universities may compound the issue by making it seem that a college education is unaffordable.This, in turn, may cause many students and their families not to desire college finance information. Students often enter their senior year of high school believing they are ready for college because they have completed required courses. This leads to the development of particularly bad study habits and skills during the senior year (Conley, 2001 Kirst, 2000 National Commission on the High School Senior Year, 200 1). In this fashion, the lack of a coherent, developmentally sequenced program of study also contributes to deficiencies in other key areas, including study skills and time solicitude.In fact, it is difficult to imagine a preparation program that emphasizes time management and study skills but does not sequence challenge levels that develop these skills progressively from year to year. What does it mean to be college ready? Previous research suggests that being ready for college means having the academic satiate knowledge and skills needed to pass college level courses (Conley 2007 Roderick, Nagaoka & Coca 2009), including course grades, standardized test scores, and the degree of rigor of courses taken.Additional research suggests that motivational or non-cognitive factors can be important determinants of success in college (Dweck, Walton & Cohen 2011). These factors include tenacity maintaining a positive attitude toward learning and being able to persist when the going gets tou gh. Being college ready also encompasses having college knowledge that includes knowing how to apply to college and for financial aid (Conley 2007).Because college is truly different from high school, college readiness is essentially different than high school competence. Students fresh out of high school may think a college course is genuinely much like a similarly named high school class taken previously only to find out that expectations are fundamentally different The college instructor is more likely to emphasize a series of key thinking skills that students, for the most part, do not develop extensively in high school.They expect students to make inferences, provide results, analyze conflicting explanations of phenomena, support arguments with evidence, solve complex problems that have no obvious answer, reach conclusions, offer explanations, conduct research, engage in the give-and-take of ideas, and more often than not think deeply about what they are being taught (Natio nal Research Council, 2002). College is different from high school in many important ways, whatsoever obvious, some not so obvious. College is the first place where we expect young people to be adults, not large children.Almost all of the rules of the game that students have so guardedly learned and mastered over the preceding 13 years of schooling are either discarded or modified drastically. The pupil-teacher relationship changes dramatically as do expectations for engagement, independent work, motivation, and intellectual development. All of this occurs at a time when many young people are experiencing significant independence from family and from the role of child for the first time. No wonder that the transition from high school to college is one of the most difficult that many people experience during a lifetime.At the identical time, college faculty consistently report that freshman students need to be spending nearly twice the time they indicate spending currently to prep are for class (National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006) These students do not enter college with a work ethic that prepares them for instructor expectations or course requirements College freshmen who are most successful are those who come prepared to work at the levels faculty members expect.Those who do not are much less likely to progress beyond entry-level courses, as witnessed by the high hardship rates in these courses and the significant proportion of college student who drop out during the freshman year. Finally, the relationship between teacher and student can be much different than in high school. An oft-cited example by college faculty is the first-term freshman who is failing the course, shows up at office hours near the end of the term, and requests extra credit in order to be able to pass. College instructors are often mystified by such requests.The students are equally mystified by the instructor reaction, since this strategy has worked very well for the student t hroughout high school In other words, the cultural and social expectations about learning and performance that students encounter tend to be vastly different as well. The scores students receive on realm tests may not be good indicators of college readiness, but students may believe that passage of the state test is just such an indicator.Recent data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) suggest a fundamental disconnect between trends and scores on state tests and on NAEP tests, which has triggered a federal study of state translations of proficiency (Cavanagh, 2006) When performance on state tests is compared to NAEP performance, significant differences exist from state to state, and students can show improvement on state tests and not corresponding improvement on NAEP In other words, it is very difficult to know what successful performance on a state test really means.A student who meets all aspects of the college readiness definition would get hold of in several ways. One is, the student would be comfortable in essentially any entry-level general education course. This is an important level to attain because failure to succeed in one or more general education courses during the first year is closely associated with failure to continue in college (Choy, 2001 Choy, Horn, Nunez, & Chen, 2000).A definition of college readiness must also address the issue of how students combine the various facets of college readiness. For students, the combination is more complex because it includes the elements under the schools control along with those that are not. In particular, students need to understand what it really means to be college-ready. They need to understand what they must do as well as what the constitution requires or expects of them.They must, first and foremost, understand that college admission is a reasonable and realistic goal that can be attained through planning and diligent help to necessary tasks. Successful academic prepar ation for college is grounded in two important dimensionskey cognitive strategies and content knowledge Understanding and mastering key content knowledge is achieved through the exercise of broader cognitive skills embodied within the key cognitive strategies.With this relationship in mind, it is entirely proper and worthwhile to consider some of the general areas in which students need strong grounding in content that is foundational to the understanding of academic disciplines The case for the importance of challenging content as the mannequin for developing thinking skills and key cognitive strategies has been made elsewhere and will not be repeated in depth here (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000).Our study intelligibly shows that many students and their families are not considering college finances as part of their early educational and postsecondary planning. As early as sixth grade, schools can help sour this trend by encouraging families to explore college finance options . School personnel should be knowledgeable about financial aid and scholarship opportunities, the financial aid process, and how students and parents can obtain financial aid.Schools should also partner with local college financial aid officers, bank representatives, and other community resources to provide financial aid information and help with early postsecondary planning. Students need to take the responsibility to utilize the information presented to them on college academic and financial requirements and to discuss this information with adults in their lives who may be able to help them.Not all students have supportive family environments, but support can come from other quarters as well, and students need to be encouraged to reach out to and interact with adults who can help them navigate the college readiness gauntlet, whether these adults are relatives, community service staff, or adults at the school who may be paid staff or volunteers. Young people need personal contact a nd guidance to know how to become, and believe they are capable of being, college-ready.