3 High School Skills for College Success

By Amy Barr

As your high school years zoom by, you’ll find yourself increasingly preoccupied with things like where to go to college, scores on excruciatingly long standardized tests, GPA points, transcripts, and how to handle college tuition costs. Stay the course! There’s going to be some nice satisfaction when you (or if you are the parent, your child) gets that college acceptance letter. All the inner critics can hush up. Well done! but are you ready to succeed once those first college classes start?

The next level will bring a fresh set of challenges. Peculiar cafeteria food and roommate troubles are as predictable as too little campus parking and overpriced textbooks. Some college troubles are easy to anticipate. Others will be unpleasant surprises unless you prepare now during his high school years. Getting to college is actually the easy part. Staying there is the real challenge. To help, I’ve come up with three common-sense skills you must develop during your high school years. Work on these now. Enjoy smooth(er) sailing later.

1. Develop Excellent Research Writing Skills and Practice them Frequently in High School

Creative writing tends to take center stage because let’s face it, research writing can sound intimidating to all involved so it is easier to do (and to assign) the creative projects. At college, research writing is the must-have skill that professors will assign but will not likely teach.
With a phone in every pocket and a computer or tablet in every backpack, data is now incredibly easy to find. College educators have shifted to focus on one’s ability to analyze and synthesize copious amounts of data. Whether you want a degree in law, business, biology, engineering, or even Classics, you must know how to find reliable sources, research well, and then write precisely, analytically and persuasively. Don’t start college unless you have practiced research writing several times or there will be struggles ahead.

In classical education, the rhetoric stage includes high school and college years. This is when the human mind is well suited to the development of research writing skills. Students are ready to research facts and complex ideas then express logical answers to important questions as they persuade others with clear analytical writing.  In practical terms, start writing research papers early in high school so that this skill has time to become college-ready.

Homeschool Parents: If you have misgivings about how to teach this subject to your student, enlist the aid of others who teach or write research pieces professionally. Find friends with degrees in research fields and sweet-talk them into objectively grading your young writer’s efforts. Encourage your teen’s co-op teachers to assign research papers in high school classes. Be willing to master research writing for yourself while you both develop writing skills.
 

2. Train for “adulting skills” while still in high school

The skills needed to boost college success are often simple “adulting skills” that should be sharpened well before dorm move-in day. Common-sense abilities like money management, self-control, and determination will help throughout college, career, marriage, and life. Knowing how to change a tire and cook a decent meal are icing on the cake!

An essential college skill is time-management. Many students who fail at college did so because they weren’t able to balance social activities and part-time jobs with their need to study, sleep, do some laundry, grab some decent food, and get to class. To avoid time management disasters, learn to juggle your own schedule now while you can still cheaply handle a few disasters. At college, mangled schedules will cost time, money, and tuition. Find a planning system and learn how to use it now instead of after a disaster happens.

Homeschool Parents: If you are still doing all the scheduling, organizing, and teaching during your teen’s high school years, your first step is to hand much of the job off to your teen. Have him take over his own academic and life schedule. Let him work out his own academic planning. Walk him through the process of evaluating his course load and learn how to allot the time needed for each subject. Have him plan for trips, work, music lessons, sports, and free time. Making mid-course adjustments to a hectic schedule is part of the learning package, no extra charge.

3. Practice healthy failure recovery

Parents: As a master of one’s own schedule, the student must suffer the consequences for poor planning, even if it means she earns a low score on a quiz or paper. The resolve of many well-meaning parents melts when the student’s transcript pays the price of priorities gone awry. If procrastination is your teen’s struggle it is better to earn a poor grade now than fail in college. Understanding his own limitations means he’s on his way to better time management. He is also on his way to developing the third most practical college skill: failure recovery.

Learning how to recover from a failed task is vital. Mastering this piece of the puzzle will make all the difference. College will be an untidy mix of positive and negative experiences that ultimately teach us a lot about ourselves. If your teen is crushed by even minor setbacks now, you’ll need to practice healthy recovery every chance you get before freshman orientation.
High school is a time of countless mental changes. The process will feel like three steps forward, two steps back. Use these four years wisely to help your student mature in these three areas. May too few parking spaces, weird roommates, and questionable cafeteria food be the worst disasters she’ll suffer in her college years.