When When When

For most, you can guarantee yourself to have at least 12 years of schooling. For less, but plenty still, you can expect to have 1 or more years of postsecondary/trade school or another form of college. Planning and preparing for the college adventure is a new challenge. Unlike grade school and high school, you get to choose your college around your specifications and what you want to do for a living or what you want for a degree.

In most high schools (I hope) you begin your college search. Thinking about what you want to do with your life and what you’ll need for a degree. Other things to consider are money; you have to understand how much it is per semester, possible housing, books, etc. Sports; any sports or extracurricular activities that you play need to be offered at your school. If not, you need to consider if that’s something you’re willing to give up for secondary education. You also have to apply to these colleges. Many of them require a test such as SATs, letters, and sometimes letters of recommendation. Then, if you’re accepted, you need to follow the admission process which can be similar but are always unique per school. Then there is speaking with teachers, and advisors to work out your classes and class times. This is just a small portion of college planning that has to happen. With most schools encouraging that high school be the time when you start to consider all of these things, junior year is when you really start to familiarize yourself with college websites and the requirements.

If the college search began in middle school, kids would in fact be more familiar with college websites and the search in general. However, if middle schoolers are like me, I barely had an idea of what I wanted to do when I got older. I knew college existed but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and if I had, I had no clue what type of education was required for that job. Most importantly, I didn’t feel up to the task of finding what school I wanted to go to in nearly 6 plus years. All that was on my mind was lunch, recess, and getting home. Opening up middle schoolers to the idea of college is a good idea in terms of getting them knowledgeable about that part of their life and encouraging them to go. However, that’s about as far as I suspect guidance counselors and schools will get. Middle schoolers are still children, and some high schoolers aren’t adequately mature either. The only thing I’m in favor of, and think will be the most effective, is telling kids that college is a great option and students should be encouraged to attend and think about what they want to do in adulthood. Possibly introducing them to websites they’ll use to search for colleges and other related websites could be successful as well.

If schools were to pursue a plan such as this, as students get to high school, the college search would then be kicked into full swing. Even if students have little to no interest in college or are uninterested, they should still participate in exercises to find colleges and majors in case things for them ever change. It’s incredibly important to understand this process. In high school, you won’t have to navigate websites on your own, you have the help of guidance counselors and possibly parents or guardians who also attended.

Tours should start in sophomore year. Students should be encouraged to set up their own, and schools should try their best to organize trips as a school to the most popular options voted on by the students at that specific school. As juniors, the tour process should continue and students should re-evaluate and/or solidify their options and choices. When senior year rolls around, students should be pretty positive about whether or not they’re going to a form of post-secondary school. They then should go through the application process with the help of guidance counselors. Once accepted, continue to seek help from counselors to complete the admission process. And then, of course, go to school!

Featured Image: “vidya pratishthan’s school of biotechnology” by sarusekh is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

First In-Paper Picture: “ryerson public school playground” by striatic is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Second In-Paper Picture: “Port of San Diego Working Waterfront Bus Tour” by Port of San Diego is licensed under CC BY 2.0.