Transition From High School To College

Throughout the years more and more high school seniors will become freshmens in college. Approximately 67 percent of high school graduates will be attending college in 2004 (Conley, 2007). This can be interpreted as an achievement for most people, but being accepted to a community college or four year college is just not enough. The real concern should be if these new students are ready for this new experience and if they are ready to meet the institution’s expectations and requirements in order to earn a degree. College readiness can be defined “operationally as the level of preparation a student needs in order to enroll and succeed— without remediation—in a credit-bearing general education course at a postsecondary institution that offers
About 40% of enrolled students take at least one remedial course (Conley, 2007). A remedial class already a sign that students are not ready to take a college level class for that certain subject. Remedial classes hold back students from taking other classes and it will take the student longer to graduate. Let’s take into consideration that if a student does not pass a math remedial class they won’t be able to take another math course unless they successfully complete the remedial
While a high school student may be required to read one or two books for a class a college student will be required to read eight to ten books (Conley, 2007). The speed of the classes is something that differs from from high school to college. Classes at colleges go at a much faster pace compared to those in high school, and the work load as stated before increasing a whole lot more. According to (Fitzgerald, 2004) there are certain and specific expectations that college professors expect from their 1st year students, some of these are “have sophisticated reading skills that include criticism, analysis, and follow-up inquiry, have judgement skills, including the ability to gather evidence in support of judgement, have argument skills and be able to formulate, communicate, and argue an assertion supported by carefully weighed evidence.” These are just some of the qualities that the college faculty are expecting to see. Another problem that freshmen students find themselves in is when it comes to finding their information to write a paper. These newly students usually choose the internet as their first alternative to find articles. The problem is that as useful as the internet can be students may choose information that is unreliable. The students need to familiarize themselves with the services that their college library provides them