Rethinking College Readiness

The likelihood that students will make a successful transition to the college experience is often a function of their readiness. College readiness is the degree to which previous educational and personal experiences, have equipped students for the expectations and demands they will meet in college. Grade Point Average and ACT/SAT scores, are limited in their ability to communicate to students and parents, an accurate range of what students must do to be fully ready to succeed in college.

College readiness courses offer a broader, more comprehensive conception of college readiness built on four aspects: key intellectual strategies, core subject proficiency, academic behaviors, and contextual experience. Contributing to student success is a set of academic self-management behaviors. Among these are time management, strategic study skills, awareness of one’s true performance, persistence, and the ability to use study groups.

All require students to demonstrate high degrees of self-awareness, self-control, and intentionality. Also, an increasing number of studies have highlighted the complexity of the contextual knowledge associated with application and acculturation to. The application process includes a great deal of technical information, such as how to apply to college, the differences among colleges and how to choose the right college, and the intricacies of the financial aid system.

The first-year college experience itself has a strong cultural component. Some students will be far more comfortable than others in this new cultural milieu, but all will experience some degree of culture shock. This contextual awareness, or “college knowledge,” is necessary for students to know how to interact with professors and peers and how to participate successfully as a member of an intellectual community.

College readiness can be defined as the level of preparation a student needs in order to enroll and succeed, in a credit-bearing course at a postsecondary institution. The student who is ready for college will be able to understand the culture and structure of postsecondary education and the methods of knowing and intellectual norms of this academic and social environment.