Are Your High School Graduates Ready for College Classes?

In spring, thousands of children take SAT or ACT exams. These exams are very often used in college admissions. If your kid is one of these high school grads, pay your attention to these exams, because most of them don’t score enough to be ready for their first classes in college.

That means that your kids may deal with challenging courses when they arrive at campus or end up in remedial classes, no matter what grades they have, even if they meet all graduation requirements of their high school.

We have a simple suggestion for you: Prepare your kids for college as soon as possible. There’s nothing wrong with improving their skills while they’re in middle school, otherwise, it may be too late.

Some educators won’t believe that graduates are not prepared enough, just checking their scores from an entrance exam. They will rather insist that there are many factors, including scores, which point to students’ readiness for college.

Some experts, however, are not so optimistic. Ed Colby, the ACT spokesman, is one of them. He states that if students don’t have a score that shows that they are ready for college, it means that they will need to work in the area they have problems with. He also hopes that parents will take this information into account and work with counselors and teachers to develop a better plan for their kids.

Sometimes students don’t reach a college-ready ACT score for some subject. It often leads to struggles when they are trying to pass a course in college. Thus, the importance of ACT and SAT exams is worth everyone’s consideration.

Various testing companies use different formulas to evaluate the readiness of students, comparing their results from each section of the test. SAT includes writing, reading, and math. ACT includes science, math, English, and reading. Top scores are 800 and 36, respectively.

Dents are prepared for math classes in college if they have at least 22 on the ACT test, and 530 on the SAT math test. For reading, these figures are equal 22 and 480, respectively. It’s necessary for them to pass the level of 23 in science and 18 in English.

In 2017, only 27% of students who took ACT tests scored enough to be considered college-ready. As for SAT, this figure was equal to 46%.

There are many reasons why we see such a situation. The first reason is that many high school courses are not challenging enough. Others may be difficult but unavailable for some students. There are many kids who go to high school lagging behind, and they don’t catch up until the graduation. Not all students are able to prepare properly, and there are many reasons for that. For example, these are poverty and race issues.

The percentage of students who participate in these tests, as well as demographics, vary in different states. There are 75% of students who took ACT in 23 states, in 2017. The highest percentage of college-ready students was in South Dakota, Illinois, Ohio, and Minnesota.

As for SAT, fewer states demonstrated the participation rate of 75%. This figure was equal to at least 50% in 23 states. Washington, Vermont, Hawaii, Virginia, and Massachusetts were leaders in this group, in both writing and math.

Parents should keep in mind that both SAT and ACT systems imply students to pass preliminary tests that lead them to college exams. Experts notice that these earlier tests can help students, teachers, and parents understand whether kids are ready for college or not so that they can focus on improving their skills.

To improve their knowledge, students can receive help from parents, tutors, and teachers. There are also many online tests available on high schools’ websites, so everyone can test their level of preparation.