Parents Should Prepare Kids for College Early

Preparing for college is an essential step for students that want to pursue further education. Guidance counselors and others alike are starting to push students to prepare for college much earlier nowadays. Either way, preparing is crucial, but the question is when should parents and guardians start assisting their kids? Students need to start preparing for college earlier in order to increase time for further evaluations, prepare for college academics, and tackle college challenges.

Through experience I have realized how important it is to have a plan. Whether it is going to a community college, state college, taking on a trade, or having a year off, I wished I had prepared earlier. College after high school needs to be evaluated for students earlier than high school. Kids in middle school should at least be prepared for it in order for them to have more time to find out what their interests are. If these younger kids can find out what they are interested in, it gives them more time to research and consider all kinds of options and career paths.

Academics in college can be a totally different environment compared to high school. Students need to prepare for college academics earlier in order to become smarter, but most importantly develop stronger habits. Habits such as time management, study habits, taking more rigorous classes, developing communication skills, asking more questions, and being engaged in class. These are all possible habits for kids in middle school to work on which is why they need to be developed as soon as possible. The earlier students can improve or start these habits, all the more prepared they can become for when they start college.

Preparing for college challenges goes hand to hand with preparing for academics. Developing more habits earlier than high school is key to preparing for college. Being responsible, independent, persevering, and hardening your values can not only prepare you for college but prepare you to become a greater person. To be more specific, drinking and using drugs can affect a future college life. Don’t underestimate middle school kids nowadays, it can be an easy place to develop bad habits. This also means it very much depends on you surrounding yourself with the right people. Finally pushing yourself academically is yet another challenge. All of these skills will help prepare you for college but it is really just about becoming mature, intelligent, and overall a better person.

Parents should be preparing their kids for college earlier. It’s time that we start preparing these kids so they can become ready for college and eventually excellent in what they want to pursue. These students all need to have more time in evaluating career paths, preparing for college academics, and preparing for college challenges. Which is why they have to start preparing earlier than high school, ideally middle school.

“Large lecture college classes” by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.