<p>"Only one-quarter of high school students who take a full set of college-preparatory courses four years of English and three each of mathematics, science and social studies are well prepared for college, according to a new study of last years high school graduates released today by ACT, the Iowa testing organization." </p>
<p>This is a pretty depressing story - many courses labeled "college prep" do not teach what is needed for college work. It is not part of the story, but perhaps many parents who are not highly educated themselves do not realize what college prep courses should require and have no clue that their kids are not being adequately prepared.</p>
<p>Our public hs does a pretty good job. They have been weak in Chemistry but are adding an AP course next year. The kids who don't take the AP courses may not be ready for college level courses, but I doubt they'd be admitted to the more rigorous colleges.</p>
<p>I think the point of this study is that unless students take courses more advanced than "college prep" (e.g. honors or AP), they are not prepared for college work, so they should not be called "college prep" classes.</p>
<p>Mo2, I've been arguing with HS in town that the so-called college prep courses aren't, and that AP isn't taught at college level. School officials don't want to hear about it though. We're contacting school board members with kids in HS to discuss. D#1 is about to graduate college; when she started the dean told us parents that it is OUR fault kids can't do college-level work and thus take so long to graduate. Really? neither my nor my spouse's parents were educated beyond HS, yet we both have PhDs from prestigious schools, finished college on scholarship in 4 years (merit and needs-based). Education of parents not such a factor imo; teachers have to teach like it's college prep, not like they'll get it over again in college.</p>
<p>at our school, it's understood that college prep is the level above remedial or ESL. College-bound students are steered into honors and later AP.</p>
<p>I view the CP designation the same way as I view "medium" in relation to shrimps.</p>
<p>At our local public, there are <em>college prep</em> classes, honors classes, and AP classes. The college prep classes are nothing like the college prep classes I took in high school. For instance in <em>college prep</em> English, there is very little reading and very little writing -- probably half the amount of reading or less compared to the classes I took in high school. But apparently they meet the minimum standards for the UC system. But not surprising that a lot of these kids are not prepared for college. Not much is expected from them in order to pass a CP class at our local high school. If one shows up and hands in the work, he/she will pass.</p>
<p>I wrote in an earlier thread tha, in an effort to boost collge admissions, several suburban schools that now designate standard college prep (the level above remedial) as "honors." Other schools have added a number of AP classes, but students aren't encouraged to take the AP exam (for fear of disparity b/c the class grade and the exam grade).</p>
<p>I fear too many parents are more concerned about their respective school's placement records than whether (or how much) learning is going on.</p>
<p>"But apparently they meet the minimum standards for the UC system."</p>
<p>Well, mstee :), they may meet minimum <em>GPA</em> standards, but if they manage to get in (doubtful, unless someone else writes their U.C. statement of purpose, etc.), they will flunk all of their classes which require writing assignments. The highschoolers I meet, tutor, & consult with in public schools (none of mine are from well-educated families), are not prepared for college-level writing. They cannot construct coherent essays independently. The majority are writing on the 4th/5th grade level. The best are writing on the 7th/8th grade level. I know that some teachers are taking a few of them to visit the easier-admit U.C.'s, but I would be surprised if they are accepted. The best of that group may luck out, if they score on the SAT well, and make it to Merced or Riverside. But I predict that most of the best will go to CSU, the rest to community college and/or work.</p>
<p>At the school my kids attend there are NYS Regents copurses, honors course and AP courses. It is generally understood that the Regents courses are "college prep" for kids who plan to attend CC or most SUNYs. The kids who aspire to Geneseo and Binghamton, LACs or OOS flagships take the honors and AP courses.</p>
<p>"When you look at the assignments these kids get, it is just appalling," she said. "A course may be labeled college-preparatory English. But if the kids get more than three-paragraph-long assignments, it is unusual. Or they’ll be asked to color a poster. We say 'How about doing analysis?' and they look at us like we are demented."
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<p>It might be a good idea to check the specific assignments at your friendly local high school.</p>
<p>I am not surprised about the estimate that only 1/4 of HS students are adequately prepared for "college." Courses need to be taught at a level consistent with the abilities and dedication of the students. Somehow this article seemed to imply that the high schools are deficient in not teaching at a high enough level. What about the students who don't care to invest much effort? Also, I think there is an issue with the definitions. There are a lot of colleges that are geared towards students with low achievement. There are other elite colleges that are very demanding. The graduate of one college might not survive as a freshman at another more demanding institution.</p>
<p>Well I would think that in NY, the Regents makes sure you know at least the basic information.
Though some of them--like Math A--are pretty much a joke for more advanced students. I've taken about 5 so far, and my lowest grade was a 94 (in both earth science and biology).<br>
My school had 0 dropouts from last year's class and 99.4% of that class continued on to college.</p>
<p>A friend's D, frosh at Swathmore, was recently assigned a 7 page paper. The M was terribly concerned b/c even though D took all honors/Ap classes, graduated in top 3% of her highly compet Riverdale day sch and earned near perfect SAT scores, D never wrote more than a 5 page paper. D's prep for college was certainly superior to that described in the NYT article, but still a 7page paper in college shouldn't be cause for alarm. </p>
<p>Likewise, another friend who's D rec'd a number of rejection letters, continues to complain that contrary to stated policy she feels D was penalized for not having taken APs even though her sch offers none. D, however, attends upper - westside day sch that has opted out of APs b/c few if its students are prepared for such rigorous courses.</p>
<p>Of course, despite these apparently deficiencies in preparation, each M would have been mortified if her DD hadn't been admitted to a top LAC!</p>
<p>edited to add: students attending pvt/indpend schs are not required to take Regents exams.</p>
<p>I felt that my private HS did a pretty great job in preparing me for college (I currently attend a top 30 school). We didn't have many APs, but the ones I took helped me a lot with my college classes, plus the credit I got made getting through the extensive divisionals easier. AP Bio made the "core" bio major courses much easier, because I'd already done most of the labs, or had learned the techniques, in AP Bio lab. </p>
<p>Also, I have been well-prepared for English, and in fact, my professor this semester even encouraged me to pursue further English studies because he thought I wrote very well. The last two years of HS, I had a wonderful teacher who basically beat us down (grade-wise, not physically!) until we learned to write at a college level - she was a former professor. We wrote almost every day in class, and had several out-of-class essays to write, culminating in the 15 page senior research paper. I feel that without this extensive preparation, knowing how to correctly write a paper would have been much more difficult.</p>
<p>I think we could have improved our chemistry and math programs, as those are the only two areas that I've struggled in, but I think it's more of a factor of me not being chemistry/math oriented then not being adequately prepared, as I made As in those classes. But I understand that my HS is thinking about adding an AP Chem class, so that should better prepare students.</p>
<p>Our school does a good job. Our AP classes are true AP- most of the students get 4s and 5s on the exams. That's one way you can tell what you are getting- the grades on the AP tests. Unfortunately, some schools will not divulge their stats on the tests, or not all the students even take the tests, so there you go.</p>
<p>In my day, we were "phased". Phase 1 was remedial. Phase 2 was...mmm..not sure. Phase 3 was pure average, basic high school classes, probably what is considered "college prep" now. Phase 4 was comparable to Honors now. Phase 5, if it wasn't paired up with a Phase 4 class (as in "Phase 4/5 Biology") would have been AP, sans the CB test. The mandatory classes like comparative political systems (communism vs. democracy) and drivers ed were phase 3 level, meaning not especially challenging but you had to have decent reading comprehension and communications skills.</p>
<p>As far as writing preparation for college- In some ways, I think of writing ability as somewhat inate, like spelling. I think you can learn to write well enough, but if writing is not your thing, you will never be turned into an exceptional writer. Sort of like sports and music/art. The kind of rudimentary writing that is taught in high school today is formulaic and designed to turn out OK writers. Some students are naturals and exceed those parameters on their own. My oldest is a fine technical writer, and scored 8s and 9s on his SAT essays; his thing is math and science. My youngest, with the same exact educational background/preparation is a much better writer (can BS his way in, out and around anyone and anything), scoring 11s and 12s. Go figure.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"When you look at the assignments these kids get, it is just appalling," she said. "A course may be labeled college-preparatory English. But if the kids get more than three-paragraph-long assignments, it is unusual. Or theyll be asked to color a poster. We say 'How about doing analysis?' and they look at us like we are demented."
[/quote]
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<p>This IS appalling. I teach 6th grade, regular and gifted classes. My regular sixth graders (like my gifted ones) write nine- to 12-paragraph narrative essays by the end of first quarter! Then we work on the traditional 5-paragraph essays (literary analysis and persuasive) for the rest of the year. They've written at least 20 formal essays this year, all of them in class, not for homework. Most of the these kids will go into "college prep" classes in high school that will be far less rigorous. I've talked to 9th graders this year, former students, who are in college prep (not honors) and have been asked to write TWO essays by April. These are kids that had me for three years of GATE (because I looped up with them each year) and wrote a total of 60 or more essays during that time. It's so disheartening. And the sad thing is, especially for the non-honors bound, they can DO THE WORK... the analysis, the complex thinking with evidence, the citations... they can do it as long as they have logical step-by-step instruction, good writing models and a teacher who believes they can meet the higher expectations (well, and the kids have to have the desire to work at it). Ugh.</p>
<p>To Epiphany (post #10) -- I agree with you. The local high school really pushes the idea of going to the local CC in fact. But unfortunately many students are not going to do well there, either, because, well, they cannot read or write very well . . . I would say that most kids headed for a UC will take the honors classes, not CP, but even the honors classes at our high school do not require as much work as the CP classes I took in high school. And I was shocked at how hard I had to work to get up to speed in college -- I definitely could have used more help in writing in high school, and I was one of the top students (small rural area). It is disheartening what is passing for CP and honors classes at our local public. The work load in CP English is similar to what momof2inca describes (post #18) above -- maybe three or four essays, as opposed to two, but still!</p>
<p>momof2inca, at least you give them a great foundation! I've seen the rigor dwindle as my kid went through middle school, but assumed that high school would have better expectations. I have finally seen the light - that as many have said, the 'college prep' really only preps kids for an acceptance at a college somewhere, but not for college level work.</p>
<p>For those who don't know it, the ACT study is really interesting because it's based on ACT products given to kids in 8th grade, freshman year and junior year. They're looking not only at ACT performance, but also at performance of kids as they progress through the grades. They say they are seeing a drop off in performance.</p>
<p>This subject really baffles me. Decades ago when I took my senior year of high school English I had a seasoned teacher for the equivalent of honors English. One day a girl in the class asked why it was we didn't write more (we wrote very little). Miss E actually said to our class - the top students in my middling high school - 'you just get these kids to write!'. It really was ridiculous.</p>