Don't wait for your teen to ask, "Is college right for me?" before you start paying attention to her college prep curriculum. Experts recommend that students take the hardest classes they can handle in high school. Employers say that the challenging courses that are best for college admission requirements are also the best at preparing people for jobs that don’t require a college degree.
Your child may tell you that she has her class schedule all figured out and you don’t need to be involved. Don’t believe her. While schools give students responsibility for selecting their classes, most require a parent’s signature for approval. “But I’m not a high school counselor!” you say. “How can I know what classes my child should take?” Take the following steps to build a solid high school course plan:
- Know your state’s graduation requirements. These requirements should be the foundation of your child’s course plan and will include three to four years each of math, science, social studies, and English, and one to two years of fine arts and a world language. Your high school counselor can tell you what the requirements are, or you can go to the Education Commission of the States’ website, which lists the high school graduation requirements for all 50 states.
- Explore all the options. Ask your high school counselor if your child can fulfill her graduation requirements on the internet or at a local community college.
- Look ahead. Call the admissions department at the colleges your child wants to attend and ask what courses they prefer to see on an applicant’s transcript. If possible, sign your kid up for these courses.
- Take the hard road. Even if your child is only in ninth grade now, plan for her to take tough classes in her senior year, especially advanced math (such as calculus and trigonometry). Many of these advanced classes have prerequisites (classes students have to take to prepare them for the advanced class), so be sure both of you know what these “prereqs” are. Remember: Your child may be tempted to pick easy courses so he can get the highest grade point average (GPA), but colleges are more impressed by students who take challenging courses—even if their grades are a little lower.
- Know what you're signing up for. Classes with similar titles can have very different levels of difficulty. If you're not sure, ask. AP Chemistry and college prep chemistry sound like they should be very similar, but the work load is quite different. Some high schools offer Algebra II/Trigonometry as a one-year course - faster pace, higher expectations, but it gets you to calculus a year earlier - while other schools spread it over two years - slower pace, more time spent with the various concepts, but depending on when you take it, you might not have the opportunity to take calculus in high school, if that's important to you.
- Extras count, too. Make room in the class schedule for electives, like music, drama, business, and computer classes.
- Find out more. The following websites provide additional information on creating a college-worthy high school schedule: