How do you know you are ready for something? So many of us don’t know how to answer this question or how to deal with readiness for something. In most cases, you can navigate this question well with a guide or a helping hand.
College readiness sounds like something on the flyers everywhere by colleges set as an advertisement to attract new students during admission season. But as generic as this sounds, college readiness is a beneficial tool for students to navigate their unique journey waiting for them.
A new, fresh out-of-high school student will never be completely ready to choose a college or course fit for them. For this, college readiness exists to help students while choosing the right college.
Teachers and school counsellors play an essential role as well. They help students to navigate the right path in their new journey.
What are college readiness standards?
College readiness is a set of standards set by colleges accordingly for the students to have upon admission. These standards depend on skills, knowledge, character, behaviour, preparedness, adaptability and other categories.
These standards vary from college to college and country to country. Therefore, students across the globe differ even if they may be in the same standard studying the same course.
What are these different standards required from a student?
Let us breakdown some of the common standards a student ought to have to be college ready:
Skills
The ability to grasp and follow through with things that the teachers will teach in class is an essential skill a student must have to be college ready. Additional vital skills outside academics needed in college are logical reasoning, time management, decent communication skills and networking.
Knowledge
General core subjects for college-ready learning are mathematics, science, english or foreign language, art, and humanitarian studies. These are the common knowledge skills a student must be able to pick from even when they decide to do a particular subject focus.
Academic Behaviour
A student must possess academic behaviour like time management, be keen to learn new things, self prepares to be in class, and contributes in-class participation to be college ready.
Character
A college is a place where different people from different backgrounds come to form a community. To be college ready, you need to have a sense of maturity, empathy, and adaptability to survive and thrive in such an environment.
How exactly does a college measure college readiness standards?
While the above-discussed set of standards for college readiness might be subjective. Usually, each college will look into a student’s grades and percentage ranking.
The academic calibre of a student is the first thing looked into during the selection and admission process.
While the way these standards are measured will vary from college to college, those, as mentioned above, are the most common standards that a high school student needs to become college ready.
Why Is College Readiness Standard Important?
In a student’s life, transitioning from high school to college is the first big step. It is a very crucial turning point in the life of any student.
You move out of your comfort zone to a relatively new place. You usually leave home and embark bigger city and boarding or rent life away from home.
College readiness is like a guide to help you find your destinations while you embark on this new journey. College readiness helps you not only be academically ready but helps you with personal growth and readiness to face anything new.
Besides its importance for the students, college readiness standards are helpful for the institutions too. A good name and prestige of any university will help it to stand tall amongst many giant universities across the globe.
Quality students are required to help keep the name and prestige of a college. Therefore, college readiness standards are essential for students and colleges when selecting students for enrolment in their institution.
How To Help Students Become College Ready?
Some of the critical measures to help students become college ready:
College awareness:
This is essential for any high school student preparing to join college. The student should be aware of the vast possibilities that college offers them to achieve great success and achievements in life.
Eligibility:
A student must be eligible to join a college. Before processing for college enrolment, students should reach a certain percentage set by a college as a cut-off for students. Only with the required credentials will a student be able to enrol and choose a course in the institution’s jurisdiction.
Preparedness of the student:
Along with academic knowledge, you must have the soft skills required to adapt and thrive in a new environment. You should not only prepare yourself to face the new journey set before you but also prepare yourself to become people-friendly for others around you.
Why Do High School Students Need College Readiness?
College is the first place students will have to stretch their ability to learn and adapt to new things in life and academics. Simply put, you become an adult once you leave your comfort zone.
A high school is usually a place of comfort because the teacher-pupil relationships in high school are well nurtured and maintained. The teaching and learning styles are easy and readymade for the students.
On the other hand, college is where you need to be open to a wide array of learning. A student will have to adapt and learn many different types of learning like practical field works, group studies, peer tutoring, class presentations etc.
A college is also a place a student is exposed to different types of people daily. Therefore, cognitive skills are very much required and essential for a student to have in order to survive and thrive in a college.
Conclusion
This article shows that college readiness standard is not a cliché advertisement on flyers but an essential measure for a student and the institution. College readiness standards is like a map to help students navigate their new journey and help them to achieve their goals and dreams.
