Applications, essays, scholarships, tests, and extracurriculars. These are the problems all students face when applying to and getting ready for college. College Transition is a class offered to Juniors and Seniors at Wylie High School, and it helps prepare students for the daunting reality of college.
Currently, Mrs. Kirby is the teacher of college transition, and she has been ridiculously helpful with all things college. Her students take part in prepping for the SAT with courses in Khan Academy and taking numerous practice tests that most don’t have time for outside of school. This class not only helps with SAT prep, but it additionally helps students prepare for dorm life. In the fall semester, students create a miniature dorm room model to help them prepare for the spatial constrictions synonymous with dorm life. This project also includes creating a detailed list for all the items needed when moving into the dorms.
College Transition not only helps with test prep and dorm life, but it provides guest speakers that come to talk through their college experiences and tons of work on applications. The guest speakers usually consist of current college students sharing tips on how to survive college, along with packing ideas and tips for studying and other things. These guest speakers are great, but the best part of College Transition is the Application preparation. There is class time to complete college application and scholarship essays, along with the process of making a resume. The students are then able to compile their essays, test scores, resumes, and applications into an expanding file folder to keep their hard work organized.
The class is by far beneficial to all ages, but personally, I recommend Juniors to take the class because Seniors will be behind if they wait to write their essays until the spring semester. Juniors also are given such wonderful opportunities to study for the SAT, plan their dorm, and write essays that they wouldn’t otherwise have class time for.
Finally, as a junior taking the class, I highly recommend this course to anyone who’s planning on going to college. It’s just so beneficial to get all of these important tasks handled within school walls instead of having to complete everything on top of homework and sports. Let’s just add this one more piece of encouragement: the practice time in SAT subjects has increased my practice test scores by 130 points, and that’s only average compared to the rest of my peers.
