College: Making It Happen - CaliforniaColleges.edu

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College Preparation for
Middle School Students
Discover, build, and maintain an academic foundation
with your child that will bring future success in high school
and college.
“It’s important for parents
to find out how to help
their kids prepare for this
endeavor.”
edward james olmos
When should planning for college begin?
Planning for college occurs over several years and should be underway by middle school.
Start early with regular savings into a college savings account such as ScholarShare,
California’s 529 college savings plan. By sharing responsibility for your child’s
future, planning for college should be an organized activity and begin in middle
school. Parents and their children should not wait until high school to plan for college.
By then, it may be too late financially and academically to apply and be admitted
to the colleges that your child is really interested in attending.
Specifically, what can I do to help my child prepare for
college while still in middle school?
Successful performance in College Preparatory Courses is the best path to prepare
for college. You should assist your child in planning to take these courses and
other challenging ones throughout middle and high school. Use the Your Future!
Worksheet in this guide to introduce and explain to your child the various courses
required for college admission that he or she should plan to take. Encourage your
child to perform at the highest level.
Why are these courses so important for my child?
These courses provide the building blocks for access to higher and more challenging
courses in later grades that are crucial for admission to, and graduation from, college.
Children will have more choices when selecting a college if they take the right
courses in middle and high school. It is critical to be informed, plan ahead, enroll,
and succeed in required subject courses as early as the seventh grade in mathematics
and language courses other than English.
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Research shows that students who take Algebra and Geometry early (by the end of
the eighth and ninth grades) are much more likely to go to college than students
who do not. In a national sample, only 26 percent of low-income students who did
not take Geometry went to college, but 71 percent of low-income students who took
that course enrolled in college.