High School Sophomores Need Help Planning

Upper-Level Courses, College And Careers

IOWA CITY, IOWA — High school sophomores say they need help choosing a college and planning a career, and information gathered by ACT Inc. indicates that they also need assistance selecting the classes that will prepare them for college. According to the responses of nearly 635,000 students who participated in the PLAN program, four out of five tenth-graders intend to go to college immediately after high school, but a significant percentage of these students indicate that they are not going to take all the upper-level classes they will need to be ready for college.

ACT’s PLAN program includes tests in English, mathematics, reading, and science reasoning. Together with the test results, inventories of interests and needs provide information to guide students’ education and career planning. PLAN uses the same score scale as the ACT Assessment, so students can get an early estimate of their college entrance-exam score and can determine what they need to do to prepare for college.

“These students have high aspirations,” said Don Carstensen, ACT vice president for educational services, “but many will have difficulty reaching their goals unless they make the most of their junior and senior years, which would include completing a college-preparatory, or core, curriculum consistent with their aspirations.”

ACT defines the core curriculum as four years of English and three years each of math, social sciences, and science. Among sophomores whose goal is a four-year college, 22 percent say they have no plans to complete such a curriculum in high school. The ratio is even higher among those who want to start out at a two-year college. Nearly half of these students do not intend to complete this curriculum.

“Too many college-bound sophomores appear to be avoiding the courses that will prepare them for college,” Mr Carstensen said. “They’ll likely end up needing remedial work after high school. They may even have their educational plans derailed. The purpose of the PLAN program is to let sophomores, and their parents and teachers, know their academic strengths and weaknesses now, so they can fill in the gaps while they still have plenty of time.”

Research consistently shows that students who take the core curriculum have a much greater likelihood of success in college than students who do not. They achieve higher average scores on their college-entrance tests, do better in their freshman classes, and are more likely to persist to a degree.

“We see large differences between the average scores of students planning to complete a core curriculum and those of students not planning to do so,” Mr Carstensen said, “and these scores are directly related to their chances of success in college freshman classes. We don’t expect all college-bound tenth-graders to have developed the skills they need yet. But we do hope they take this message to heart and enroll in the necessary courses for their junior and senior years.”

High school sophomores may have an incomplete picture of their options, but, according to their PLAN responses, they clearly want help filling in the picture. Three out of four, for instance, say they need help choosing a college or technical school. Another 64 percent express the need for help selecting the right job or career.

“It’s the job of educators and parents to see that these students get the help they need,” Mr Carstensen said. “And it’s the responsibility of the students to accept that help.”

ACT Inc., an independent, not-for-profit organization, serves millions of people in high schools, colleges, professional associations, businesses, and government agencies with programs and services that have one guiding purpose – to help people achieve education and career goals by providing information for life’s transitions.