Category: College Prep

Beyond Ready is resources for students preparing for college and/or career. This category archive specifically features blogs about College Prep.

  • The only question you need to ask when choosing a college

    The only question you need to ask when choosing a college

    The decision making process for choosing a college, should look like this:

    career a major a college

    Not the other way around.  Most people look at the other way around.

    With this being said, college is a means to the end of pursuing a meaningful and lucrative career.

    And with that being said, the only thing you should ask when choosing a college (after you’ve made sure you’ve thoroughly asked yourself and determined what career direction you want to take) should be:

    What are the college’s placement rates or graduate outcomes from the program/major you are planning to pursue?

    This should be your key decision criterion.

    Wait you say, college is about more than just me getting a job!  It’s about the experience. You’re right, and it is about finding the right college where you can thrive, work hard and be one of those people who does get placed in a meaningful career because of what the college can help you achieve and through your own efforts.

    If you want to search for a college by all those “fit” factors as well as cost, we love College Board’s College Search tool.  It lets you filter colleges by ten factors and save them for further consideration.

    As some food for thought, you also might want to check out Malcolm Gladwell’s advice on the worth of degrees.  When comparing Ivy League to other schools that have a basic quality of academic standards, there is no difference in terms of job opportunities and the salaries associated with them that graduates receive.

  • Dream Job

    Dream Job

    After finishing my senior year, I will start the next four years deciding what I want to do for the rest of my life. I will have to consider the economy and job markets when deciding on a major and future career, but I don’t want to neglect what I might be best at doing and what I would enjoy.

    If money and unemployment didn’t matter my choice would be a lot easier. I would rule out any job that has anything to do with blood, makes me work with spreadsheets, or forces me to understand chemistry. With those jobs out of the way I have narrowed down my list of dream jobs to three.

    Here is my Dream Job list:

    1. Antique Hunter- I love the thought of looking through old barns to find hidden gems and learning the history behind them. Then I’d like to have a cute store to sell what I find. I think I have watched Antiques Road Show with my mom one too many times.
    2. House Flipper- I have always had a fascination with old homes. Each one has a unique architecture and layout. I would love to be able to uncover the beauty and potential of homes that have been forgotten.
    3. Full- Time Babysitter- Babysitting is the best job I will ever have. I get to play with the kids and play with their toys that were much cooler than mine ever were. Then when you get tired of it, the parents come home and you get to leave.

    I realize going to college for any of these jobs would be pointless and wasteful. Maybe down the road when the economy is better and I have enough time and money I will peruse the jobs! Trying to balance what the market demands with what my passions may be is a challenge, but I hope that I can find a balance in making sure that what I do in life leads to fulfillment.

    Other helpful blog posts related to this topic:

    A Final Word on Talents and Passions

  • Decisions for Failure

    Decisions for Failure

    The worst thing you can do while in high school is act without regard of what the consequences will be. Shortcuts and bad decisions are going to catch up with you eventually. If you take the easiest classes offered, college courses are going to be next to impossible to pass. Sneaking around doing things that you know you are not suppose to be doing are going to be hard to control when you are on your own and everyone else is doing the same thing.

    When choosing easier classes, you are only procrastinating what you eventually will have to learn. Instead of waiting to take harder classes until college and having to learn how to study for three college courses while dealing with all your new responsibilities, try to take AP classes and get a head start for college. Taking AP classes ahead of time will help you be more familiar with the subjects and types of test you will see in college classes. Often students don’t want to put effort into their classes, they want to be able to make good grades without studying. This mindset hurts them when they begin college classes. If you don’t study in college you will flunk out.

    If you are looking forward to college because it will let you escape from your parents rules or give you a chance to be able to do and get away with whatever you want, you will struggle. If you treat college as one big party, you will waste your money and most likely not make it to graduation.

    Academics are important and it is why you are attending college, but it is also finding out who you are without your parents or lifelong friends around you. You won’t be held accountable to wait until 21 to drink or to not cheat on tests. How you act reflects your character and it is all up to you.

    Surround yourself with friends that will hold you accountable for your actions and expect nothing else but your best. Don’t set yourself up to be a drop out your freshmen year. Take my advice from last week into consideration when navigating through high school.

  • High School Advice

    High School Advice

    With only a few months left in my high school career, I look back on my decisions and feel like I am college ready. In the past weeks, I have broken down how to be college ready for freshmen, sophomores,juniors, and seniors. Sadly this isn’t the case with all of my graduating class. Even though most of them will be accepted into college, most of them will not be able to keep up with the responsibilities of college.

    If you plan on going to college, take AP courses. They will challenge you and your grades might not be as good, but AP classes will help you study like you will when you are in college. If you struggle through AP classes, try different ways to study, it is better for you to figure out what works best for you now than when the college courses begin and you are drowning in work. You can’t expect to be successful in college if you breeze through honors or regular classes with an easy A. Taking challenging courses will also help to increase your ACT and/or SAT scores.

    A couple weeks ago I discussed the ACT and how it is important if you want a big scholarship. I stress this because most students rely on their GPA to get scholarships, but end up with next to nothing because they weren’t focused on the right area. Most of the scholarships at the schools I researched (mostly southern schools) had a minimum GPA that was as low as a 3.0. So a student that has a 3.0 with an ACT score of 28 will receive more scholarship than a student that has a 4.0 with an ACT score of 24. What level of scholarship you get is determined by your ACT score. I don’t agree with the system, but if you want to get a scholarship you will have to put effort into the ACT.

    Be involved in as much as you can. You won’t ever have the opportunity to be involved in so many activities while in school. College clubs and sports take up a lot of time so you have to pick and choose what you are involved in. Savor your experience; I will miss going to games where I know everyone playing and the people in the stands. I won’t ever be able to have that again.

    I speak from my experience and the experience of others in my position. Don’t wish away your high school years. They are important in getting you ready for your future. There are a lot of changes that have occurred in me since I was a freshman. I wish I had not cared what everyone else thought of me. When I was a freshman, I thought the seniors were so much older and wiser than me. It is so not true. Most people don’t mature until much later than high school. They might have high school figured out, but life is far from being figured out. Take this in consideration when dealing with others in high school by acting with empathy and helpfulness instead of judgment. This mindset will not only serve you well in high school but throughout your life.

  • Playing the ACT/SAT “Game”

    Playing the ACT/SAT “Game”

    There is a lot of fuss about college admissions testing and a lot of money (it’s a multi-billion dollar industry) spent on test prep services. In fact, Press coverage last week regarding standardized college entrance exams was all a buzz with the announcement of changes being made to the SAT.

    Why is there so much focus on these tests? Because if you want to get in to the school of your choice and if you want to get scholarship money, your ACT/SAT score is the number one determinate.

    We’ve even been focusing on the ACT prep here at Horizon Point with our recent blog post and arecent resource release “ACT Tips and Tricks”.

    But do these test even matter? Should you even pay to play the game?

    Taking into account some things I’ve been reading lately, these test aren’t actual predictors of overall success.

    The first chapter of The Millionaire Mind, which is a study in the way millionaires think and what has made them successful, basically rips to shreds the notion that success in school, as indicated by grades and test scores, is an indicator to predicting if someone will be a millionaire (except in the case of millionaire doctors and lawyers, which most millionaires are not of this variety, but are entrepreneurs).

    Thomas Stanley the author states,

    “Testing has its place in society, but there should be more testing of the intereststhat young people have inside of them. Tell them this: if you want to be successful, select a vocation you love. It’s amazing how well people do in life when their vocation is one that stimulates dedication and positive emotions.”

    Stanley proves through data that focusing on selecting a vocation you will love is a better predictor of success than any standardized test score or GPA.

    Or consider this quoterecently found in an HR Capitalist Blog Post

    “LAST June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google — i.e., the guy in charge of hiring for one of the world’s most successful companies — noted that Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. … We found that they don’t predict anything.” He also noted that the “proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time” — now as high as 14 percent on some teams. At a time when many people are asking, “How’s my kid gonna get a job?” I thought it would be useful to visit Google and hear how Bock would answer.

    The long and short of his answer- The ability to think creatively and process things on the fly is the number one predictor of success at Google.

    So should you even play the SAT or ACT “game”?

    Unfortunately, yes. In the absence of colleges weighting other criteria higher than standardized tests, which I don’t think is going to happen any time soon because one test score is such an easy method for distinguishing among candidates, if your plan is to go to college, the most effective way to make sure you aren’t paying any more than you have to is to do well on these tests. I’d choose paying $500 for testing prep than an extra $40,000+ for a college education than a 2-3 point difference on the test (ACT that is) can cost you.

    If you, however, want to succeed in life, don’t put too much stock in your SAT or ACT score (parents, you’d be well advised to listen to this, too- your kid’s success is not defined by a score on a test). Instead, your overall time is better spent discovering your talents and passions in order to be able to do what you love and think on the fly. Doing these things will lead to millionaire status or a job at Google much quicker than flashing your ACT/SAT on a resume.