Stepping into the forest of my mind

Stepping into the forest of my mind
Just as every journey begins with a first step, every story begins with the first word.
Showing posts with label Entrance exams. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Entrance exams. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Gaining Entrance to College for the Non-Traditional Student


College Entrance exams
The big thing to remember about college is that prospective students can begin attending any semester; fall, spring, or summer. 

 

Getting accepted into college is no easy task.  College admission boards prefer intelligent, well-rounded students.  While the category percentages may vary, the boards look for good school grades and/or a high performance on the S.A.T.’s [Scholastic Assessment Tests] as proof of academic accomplishment.  Well-rounded students probably participated in sports and belonged to clubs in high school.  Traditional prospective college students volunteer their time at churches, hospitals, or community functions. 

 

You know, a person who never sleeps, has no time for family or friends.  These are tough sneakers to fill for a non-traditional student, a student over 30 years of age beginning college for the first time. 

 

This was one reason why I started at a community college or junior colleges as they are sometimes called.  Since I was a non-traditional student, with no S.A.T. scores, I needed to take a basic skills test, an entrance exam, to be sure I was prepared for college level math and writing. 

 

Okay, so I was only partially prepared for college, passing the writing portion of the entrance exam, not the math.  I didn’t have a college preparatory high school curriculum.  I was a business student.  I haven’t done algebra and rational numbers and integers, etc., for a long, long time.  I required basic skills math courses to bring me up to college-level math in order to complete the math and science requirements needed for a college degree.       

 

And that is where my college journey begins in the memoir: deciding to apply and take the entrance exam at a community college—with five children in tow for most of it.  However, even though I started at a community college, the possibilities from there were numerous.  I’ll discuss some of those possibilities together with scholarship next month.