Community College Programs

Last month, I looked at some advantages attending a community college after high school had over beginning at a university. This month, I’ll take a look at the transition between community college and university and the differences in the programs those different types of schools have.

Indeed, many students attend community college without ever intending to transfer to a university. In fact, one purpose of community colleges is that they provide skills-based training that simply don’t require education beyond a couple of years. Often, these programs provide some sort of technical certificate or prepare a student to pass a test that leads to industry certification. Examples of these programs include plumbing, cosmetology, welding, and dental hygiene. While these usually don’t require years upon years of education, the skills that these programs teach are in demand and jobs in these areas can provide a stable income throughout a career.

Students who pursue this route are likely to finish with a technical certificate or perhaps a A.A.S (Associate of Applied Science) or A.G.S (Associate in General Studies) degree. This is typically the end of the educational line for these students. However, many students will attend community college with the hopes of later transferring to a four year university. These students will most likely be working towards an A.A. (Associate of Arts) or A.S. (Associate of Science) degree. Which one of those will depend on the focus of the student’s course work. These degrees typically comprise half or 60 hours of the credits needed to obtain a bachelor’s degree at a university.

It’s worth noting that there is growing number of traditional community colleges that offer a limited number of programs that end with a bachelor’s degree. Some of these schools no longer refer to themselves as “community colleges”. Rather, they may drop the “community”  and just call themselves a college. They do though still provide mostly two-year or technical degrees which are generally not available at four-year universities. Nevertheless, the four year programs that are offered at the traditional community colleges are an excellent way to earn a bachelor’s degree in common fields like medicine and education. These usually come at a fraction of the cost compared to what you’d pay for the same degree at a traditional four-year school.

Still, many students hope to get their two years in at a community college before transitioning to a university. There are some important strategies to employ here in order to meet that goal and the key is planning. At the end of the two years at the community college, the student should be ready to enter classes that are exclusive to their major at the university. So, they need to focus on their intended major’s pre-requisites as they pursue their A.A. or A.S. What the universities don’t want to see is a junior who needs a year of classes at the university before they are prepared to get their hands dirty in their major. This means that community college students hoping to transfer to a university need to be familiar with what the four-year school expects of their freshman and sophomores. They would do well to target a specific four-university prior to the start of the community college and understand that school’s degree tracking for the program they are interested in. By taking the classes proposed by the university for their freshman and sophomore year at the community college, these students will put themselves in a much better position to be accepted to the university of their choice.

Advantages of Community College

Attending a community college after high school presents many advantages to a student who is eager to acquire skills and further their education but who just might not be ready for a big 4-year university, for whatever reason.

One of the biggest advantages of a community college is that they usually have open admission. That means that you don’t have to apply and wait to see if you’re admitted like you do at a traditional 4-year college or university. However, open admission does not guarantee that you’ll be admitted to the program within the community college that you want or that there won’t be remediation in areas you prove to be weak in.

Another upside of community colleges is proximity. They are so named because they tend to be more numerous and located in the community in which they serve. In Florida, where I live, for example there are 28 traditional community colleges compared to 12 state universities. Thus, students typically attend the community college closest to where they live rather than “going away to college” like one might at a university.

That is not to say, though, that there isn’t a growing trend of high school graduates who choose to leave home to attend a community college in another town. This is most typical of community colleges that are located in the same town as a major university. These universities often have close relationships with their “feeder” community college and might do a better job of aligning programs with each other than a community college outside of the area of the university. Sometimes, community colleges and universities might even share some on-campus housing, athletic facilities, and community college students might even be able to participate in things like the university’s fraternities and sororities. These types of policies can vary greatly from school to school so it’s important to do your homework.

Another big difference, and advantage, of a community college over a university is cost. Tuition at a university can be more than double the cost of that a community college. The opportunity to live at home can also present savings that can make college much more affordable to families. Students are given the same opportunity for financial aid at a community college than they are at a university and scholarships are offered as well.

Beyond the financial savings, living at home while attending a community college can help to ease the transition between high school and college. Students are able to adjust to college life while still under their parents’ watch. The flexible class scheduling community colleges usually have means students can work, sometimes full time, while they move through college and perhaps at the same job they’ve held for a number of years through high school. This continuity might not be a bad thing.

Next month, I’ll take a look at the various programs and options available to a community college students including the transition from community college to university.

What happens in a college admissions office

Today, I’m going to put myself in the shoes of a college admissions advisor: My year consists of two stages. The first of those puts me on the road recruiting. I’m usually assigned a geographic territory and spend time at various college fairs and on high school campuses speaking about my university. There is an opportunity to connect with me here. If you get the chance to engage me and introduce yourself, do so. I’ll most likely be the person who reads your application and my opinion of you can you get very far towards admission.

The next stage of my year is when we decided who is admitted to our college. Each freshman class is unique and we have some specific goals for each class. We know we’re targeting a certain number of enrollees for our freshman class. We may be looking for certain demographics, perhaps we want to increase the number of women in our engineering programs, we may need a left handed pitcher for the baseball team, or we may just need to balance the budget which could impact the number of out-of-state vs. in-state students we accept. Factors like these and others are identified before we start reading applications and such factors may carry more weight at one university than another.

In order for your application to even get to my desk, it must have all the right pieces. This usually means standardized test scores, high school transcripts, an application fee, and the complete application itself which may or may not include things like essays or letters of recommendations. Once all those things are in place, your application comes to me and I’m going to read it with a fine tooth comb.

At this stage, applications are headed to one of three places. One of those is the decline pile. For whatever reason, the applicant is just too far away from what we’re looking for to warrant further consideration. The next is the accept pile. These students have it all and I send them on to be swiftly approved by a supervisor with my recommendation. Lastly, there’s the committee pile. These files are somewhere in the middle and are brought before a group within the admissions office for discussion.

Here, I’ll give a pitch about the upside (or downside) of an applicant that might be in juxtaposition with something else in their file. We’ll talk about it and make a decision as a committee. These might be the students who look amazing, but had a felony arrest in the 11th grade. Perhaps, there’s a student with really low test scores but has a great GPA and has a long list of accolades that includes their being class president for four years. Maybe the student’s grades are average by she spent two summers in Kenya and wrote a killer essay about her plans to bring change to the impoverished in Africa. Or, maybe the application is all around ho-hum, but I met the student when I was on their high school campus and just really liked the vibe in a way you can’t feel from an application.  Whatever the case, your application’s path here is your fate at my university and I hope we’re able to send you good news when our decisions are released.

ACT Facts

So, here is everything you ever wanted to know about the ACT test. The ACT, originally stood for American College Testing and was first administered in 1959., in 2014 1.84 million high school graduates took the test.

It is divided into 4 sub-sections; English, Reading, Mathematics, Science Reasoning, plus an optional Writing test. Each sub-section is graded on a scale of 1-36. The sub-scores are averaged together to produce a number, which ACT calls a Composite score. English, Mathematics, and Reading are further divided into subscores which are graded on a scale of 1-18. The optional Writing test is graded from 2-12, and a combined score from English and Writing graded 1-36 is also computed. The Writing score does not impact the Composite score. Each question that is answered correctly receives 1 raw point and there are no penalties for incorrect answers or guesses.

In addition to the ACT, the testing service offers the EXPLORE test which is available to 8th and 9th graders and the PLAN test which is available to 10th graders. These tests allow students the opportunity to become familiar with the ACT. They can also be used as a tool for placement and consideration of high school courses and provide early insight into how competitive a student will be for college admission. PLAN and EXPLORE are not available in all areas. Typically, the are offered to all students in a given grade within a given school or district. You generally can’t just “sign up” to take these tests the way you can with the ACT.

Nearly all colleges will consider ACT scores as part of the college admissions process. Most any school that requires a standardized test for admission purposes will accept the ACT for that. The ACT Corporation views the test as indicator of a student’s potential success in a entry-level college courses.

I generally a recommend a student who is sitting for a ACT test to take the writing portion. Many colleges require it. So, if you don’t take the writing and end up applying to a school that requires it, you’ll need to retake the ACT with Writing, essentially making the first first attempt meaningless. Some colleges will super-score the ACT as well. This means If, say, your best English and Reading scores were from a October test and your best Mathematics and Science Reasoning scores were from the February test, you can combine these best sub-scores from two different test dates to produce a new Composite. Each college has different policies on super-scoring so it is best to do your homework there.

The test is offered six times a year in September, October, December, February, April, and June. The fee is $39.50 without Writing, and $56.50 with it. The test generally begins at 8am on a Saturday. English is 45 minutes, Mathematics is 60, Reading and Science Reasoning are each 35 minutes. The Writing portion is an additional 45 minutes. Factoring in breaks and administration time, non-Writing students are usually dismissed around 12:15 and Writing students around 1:00. Registration is done through the website at actstudent.org.

High School Matters

         By the time a student reaches high school, families become so focused on credits, GPAs, and whatever the next step is beyond graduation that we often forget how valuable the knowledge presented in class really is. School staff is certainly guilty of this as well. The fact is, the education we receive prior to high school graduation serves as the foundation for everything else we do in life. Sure, we’re probably going to learn the skills that provide us the income we need to live after high school, and that education is enormously important.However, so much of our knowledge that we use outside of our career comes from grade school.

I was reflecting on this the other day when I was talking with my young daughter and telling her the names of all the major bones in her body. I only know them, and so much more about the rest of the human body, because of the anatomy and physiology class I took in the 11th grade. If I’m doing a home improvement project, I can calculate area or volume because of my high school geometry class. Every four years, I know just how the american presidential election process works from my US Government class.  I can format a cell in a spreadsheet thanks to a computer class I took. There are countless other things I know, or at least can figure out, just because I made it through high school.

The point I want to make here is that a high school education counts and is valuable. It’s hard to connect those daily lessons in school to real life for a young person, but they do connect. That week I learned about the properties of gas in my chemistry class, fumigating a rental property I didn't yet own for termites would have seemed like a far flung idea. But, 20 years later when I had to talk to the exterminator and then explain what was happening to my tenants, I was so thankful I understood what I did about the way the world works.

Elementary, middle school, and high school are important. The things we learn there might not come in to play every single day, but they will at some point. Those little nuggets of information we somehow dig up from the deep recesses of our memory, years later, are so valuable to our everyday lives and make us better and more productive people. Don’t lose sight of that value as you pursue college and bigger and better things. Remind your students that the stupid little assignment they don’t care about serves the purpose of reinforcing a concept, that maybe, just maybe, will be something they really need to rely on way down the road. At the very least, they’ll be able to answer their daughter’s question when she asks what the bones in her foot are called.

Holding on Until Graduation

Have you ever watched a rodeo? You know it’s going to be a bumpy ride and the goal is just to hang on for as long as you can, hopefully beyond whatever the longest time is so far. Unfortunately, for many parents this is what it’s like trying to get their school through high school. It's rough, and they're just trying to keep their kids hanging on until they reach graduation.

            I think nearly all parents have high aspirations for their children when they're little. Often, those hopes include college. Once, high school gets rolling though, it sometimes becomes clear that just might not happen. At that point, the goal really needs to shift from college planning and preparation to just hanging on and trying to get the student to get a high school diploma.

This doesn't mean you're a bad parent. This is just the path that some students take. I like to think, though, that all hope is not lost. These students still have potential and they can be successful later in life. I believe these non-starters just need a little bit more time to mature and figure out some things about the real world. They need a little life experience to learn that they want more for themselves long term than what their little high school job is able to provide.

            The trick here, from the parent perspective, is to keep all that opportunity in play. That generally means getting a high school diploma and that's really where I'm going with the hanging on to the bull analogy. Getting a GED doesn't really provide the same opportunities as a high school diploma (i.e. the military). Getting into serious legal trouble or getting into career tracts that will eventually get them into legal troubles, like drug dealing, is probably the biggest threat. Each of those is tantamount to falling off the bull.

In order to avoid these things as a parent, you have to fight. There is no time to lament different decisions you could have made. You have to work with your kid to keep grades at a minimum level to graduate even if that means throwing immediate college plans out the window. You have to challenge their behavior and work to keep them out of trouble. This is not easy. It will be a struggle and probably result in many sleepless nights. But hang on. All those bumps and bruises will be worth it if you can get them that diploma and keep them out of jail. Hang on to the bucking bull of yours, and love them along the way. If you can do that, that bull will grow to graze peacefully in the pastures your cleared for them....one day.

Enlisting in the Military

     The high school environment is often bursting with the pressure to attend college in some variety upon graduation but the truth is that is not the only option. Beyond that pressure is the regular presence of recruiters from each of the military branches. Indeed, enlisting in the service provides many advantages to high school graduates. Besides the immediate entry to a respected and well paid field with great benefits, enlistees can gain valuable experience and skills for a trade in which they can continue to work after their service has ended.

        If the military is a viable option for a high school student, there are several things they should consider and prepare for as they near graduation. Recruiters for all branches of the military are in every community and are usually easy to find. Your local high school can always put you in touch with one if need be. These recruiters are specialists at assisting in the enlistment process but the following will get you started.

The first thing a potential enlistee should determine is which branch of the military most interests them. Each branch has its own pluses and minuses and asking someone else to recommend one is kind of like asking someone to recommend a vacation. There’s really a lot of different elements involved in that question on its face like where do you want be based, what are the deployment rates, what is a typical day like, what skills do you want to practice while you’re in service, what kind of incentives are available, and many others. The answers to those and many more questions can mean entirely different things to different people. The key here is to do some homework and make sure you understand the differences between the branches. Current or former enlisted members can help you with this as well as recruitment officers.

Once you’ve made that decision, you need to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Test or ASVAB. This can help recruiters better place you within the branch you’ve selected. You’ll also need to pass physical and medical exams. This is all part of the Military Entry Processing Station or MEPS. Once you finish with all the requirements at MEPS you can either report for basic training if you’ve waited until after high school to start this process, or become admitted to the Delayed Entry Program (DEP)

DEP is primarily for high school seniors who know they want to enter the military but plan to finish school first. Basically, it just gets you through MEPS while you’re still in school so you’ll be ready to go following graduation. It also gives you the opportunity to focus and prepare for life in the military by doing things like increasing your self discipline, getting into physical shape, and arranging personal affairs.

       Service in the military is a fulfilling and enriching career path. It’s a great alternative for a student who feels college might not be the best fit for them right after school, though that option will still be there after their commitment to the service is filled. Either way, a little preparation and homework is needed before enlisting in the military.