Making the Most out of High School

Номер #808
Продолжение. Начало в №800, №801, №804

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On your first day of high school, the last thing you are thinking of is college. It seems like four years are enough time to prepare to enter college. Yet if you realized from the moment you set foot on the high school campus you are preparing for college, your choices and decisions might be quite different. The basic truth is just that: your selection of courses, your choices of extracurricular activities and even your choice in friendship will shape you into becoming the adult you want to be, including your decision to attend college. Some students are already primed for college the moment they start high school, whereas other students might consider college just an afterthought. As anything else in life, the sooner you start preparing yourself, the better you and your family will be able to achieve your college dreams.

In the Issue #804 we started talking about the world of High School: graduation requirements, credits, grades, GPA weighting, etc.

High School Curriculum Planning
The single most important piece of college preparation is curriculum planning & course selection. If a student hasn’t already made an academic plan in middle school, he needs to begin planning ASAP. The course selection and choices will undoubtedly set precedent for one’s educational career. Each type of school has a different set of guidelines for selecting courses. How then will a student know if he is meeting the basic requirements that colleges expect from high school students? The first step is finding what the minimum requirements are for a particular school. Next you need to realize that these requirements are the absolute minimum and many times this won’t be enough to meet many competitive universities requirements.

College is about 70% based on academics. A good piece of advice is to take the most difficult courses that you can handle, with a goal of obtaining As and Bs. Most counselors would agree that a B in an honors or AP (or IB) class is better than an A in an easier one (we’ll discuss this in the next article). A grade “D” is not accepted for college. Generally colleges like to see a consistent progression in English, Math, Lab Sciences and Social Studies plus a Foreign Language.

Courses to take in High School

So what should you take? When you look at a college website, you will usually be able to find their specific requirements. So if you have some colleges in mind, or at least some that would represent your type of college, it pays to do research up front. As a general example, you will often see requirements by subject, such as*:
• History/Social Science – 2 years required/3 preferred
• English – 4 years required
• Math – 3 years required/4 recommended
• Laboratory Sciences – 2 years required/3 recommended
• Language (other than English) – 2 years required/3 recommended (of same language)
• Visual and Performing Arts – 1 year required
• Electives –1 year required (extra classes in the above categories also fulfill the elective category unless otherwise specified)
*Note: the above curriculum is a sample only. Your high school may offer different guidelines.
A student heading for top tier college would likely have taken a language (other than English) and first year Algebra class in 8th grade, then would have taken 4 more years of Math, Language and Lab Sciences. In addition, many of those would be honors or AP (or IB) classes.

What Years Count the Most
There is much talk about which high school years count and which don’t. The truth is simple – every year counts. Sophomore and junior year are the most significant, but your freshman year obviously affects your overall GPA (some private colleges DO count all four years, some don’t). Senior year is becoming increasingly crucial, too. I’ve heard not once of “tragedies” where a student was turned down after the college looked at first semester senior grades, even though they were initially accepted. The classes shouldn’t be too easy and the grades also cannot be dropped. You must keep working and can’t afford catching ‘seniority’!

To be continued…
To find out more on ‘How to Make the Most out of High School’ (transcripts evaluation, curriculum planning, course selection, post-secondary options, and a lot more) and to get your questions answered, please join us on Wednesday, October 20 at 7 pm (room G-100). To reserve a spot for the seminar call (650)223-8621. For more information you can also e-mail collegepathway@gmail.com.
This seminar is part of the “College Knowledge” series that is aimed at assisting Russian-speaking parents better understand college preparation and college admissions process. The program is sponsored by Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto and is facilitated by Elena Mikhailova, a high school counselor with Santa Clara Unified School District. It is planned as a 10-session series, taking place once a month from September to June. It can be taken as separate modules, or as a 10-session package.