Not all high schools prepare students for college
Up-to-Date Editor
If you asked hundreds of college students whether or not high school gave them the right amount of preparation they needed for college, you probably wouldn’t reach a definitive answer. This is the type of question that really varies from student to student. There are many different variables that play a part in the answer as well.
For example, where they went to high school, what classes they took, what the workload was like, how the teachers were, and what kind of guidance counselor they had. In my Sophomore and junior year, I went to a high school in New York, and I spent my senior year at Mountain Pointe High School in Ahwatukee. The difference between these two schools was like night and day.
The high school in New York, Deer Park High School, did an amazing job making sure students knew exactly what they were doing when it came to college. They had a college and career center, where juniors and seniors could come down any time for help with essays, applications, and even just advice on what schools would be best for them. Guidance counselors at Deer Park High School were also completely on top of their game; there was never a college question they couldn’t answer.
I believe if I had been able to graduate from Deer Park High School, I would have been a million times more prepared for college. However, I graduated from Mountain Pointe. Senior year is crunch time; you are making final decisions on what school it is you want to attend, trying to fill out scholarship applications, and making sure you have every possible credit you need in order to graduate.
My guidance counselor at Mountain Pointe had problems helping me with every single one of those areas. She was a counselor specifically for seniors, but didn’t know the first thing about helping me apply to schools. Even worse, she lost some of my transcripts, misread the way my credits transferred from school to school, and I almost didn’t graduate. I spent the last couple of months of my senior year focusing more on getting out of high school and catching up than I did preparing for starting college.
For anyone who had a similar experience, I’m sure they would say that they were not prepared for college. I believe that if every high school had the amenities like Deer Park, everyone would be prepared and know exactly what to expect when it was finally time to begin their college endeavors.
