As freshmen, we are told that teachers and staff are trying to prepare us for college. However, in many peoples’ eyes, the staff doesn’t seem to be doing that.

Our first three years of school are mainly focused on trying to prepare us for the ACT, the standardized test that determines “college readiness.”

The scores that students receive on this test will ultimately affect what colleges will accept their applications.

For the University of Michigan, the average ACT scores for incoming freshmen are between 29 and 33.

However, getting a high score on your ACT does not mean that you are college-ready.

The ACT is merely a test, and each year it varies in difficulty. This means that people who are not college ready can be “taught to the test” in order to get a good ACT score.

I think that we are setting students up to fail with such an emphasis on one single test. High school should be a transition from one level of work to the next, but we are not doing what we need to do in order to accomplish this.

The closest thing we have to college courses here at Kearsley are AP courses. Although AP courses are college level, I feel that they lack some aspects of a true college class.

At college, your classes usually meet only once or twice a week, for one and a half to two hours a session. Homework is rarely a large part of your final grade.

On the other hand, AP classes meet every day of the week. There is a lot of homework, and it is a large part of the final grade. AP classes also meet for only an hour at a time.

In high schools across the nation there are people who challenge themselves in an effort to prepare for college. These people often make the choice to dual-enroll, early admit, or participate in an Upward Bound program.

Dual enrollment/early admittance is when a high school student decides to replace a class at the high school with a class at a local college or university.

The idea is not very common in many schools and many students do not even know the opportunity exists.

Dual enrollment and early admittance give students the opportunity to take college courses at actual colleges. The ability to do this gives students an edge and allows them to see what college classes and lectures are really like.

Though students do not live on campus, these programs offer opportunities to students that they can only find on a college campus, something that cannot be taught in a classroom setting.

Dual enrollment and early admittance offers students opportunities to explore the beginnings of their career fields.

With all of these things considered, why do we have only a few students taking dual-enrollment or early-admittance classes?

I think that it is the responsibility of the school to encourage students to take these classes to get a better feel of how college really is. I also feel that it is the responsibility of the students to seek out information on the classes they are offered and all of the opportunities that are there for them.