College Transition Initiative

Welcome to the blog of the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding’s (CPYU) College Transition Initiative (CTI). This site contains commentary on transitional issues, exploring research, trends and college student culture. For more information visit: www.cpyu.org.

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Location: Elizabethtown, PA, United States

The transition from high school to college is a difficult one, and yet, it is a transition that is often overlooked. This site is to help college bound students, parents, and youth workers stay up to date on the latest research and trends in regards to college transition. Your comments are greatly appreciated. Join the conversation!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Parenting for College Success

My good friend, Eric Bierker, owner of the College Transition Group, is offering a free resource for parents of college bound students. If you send him an e-mail you can receive a free copy of Parenting For College Success 101 a seven page resource for parents to help guide their children to college success (it will be sent to you as a Word document). Please note in your email that you want this resource. All the information you need is available here.

Thank you Eric!

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

What Does Ready Mean?

This article, What Does Ready Mean? There is plenty of confusion about what it means to fully prepare students for life after high school, is very interesting. The article focuses on job readiness and makes the case that most students, even those that graduate college, do not have the job skills needed for most occupations. There seems to be a breakdown between the educational system that supposedly trains students for work, and the training required by most employers. What’s needed is “people skills.” Employers desperately need people who show up on time, work hard and are teachable. According to the article, most colleges and universities are having trouble graduating those kinds of students.

Most intriguing was a quote by Harvard professor Howard Gardner. He writes, “No one knows precisely how to fashion an education that will yield individuals who are disciplined, synthesizing, creative, respectful, and ethical.” Hmmm… If an education is not doing that, what exactly is it doing?

Monday, June 11, 2007

Middle School to High School Transition

A new study reveals that the transition from middle school to high school is crucial in determining the likely hood of a smooth transition from high school to college. Meaning, we need to be thinking about this transition much sooner. Teenagers Overconfident, Underprepared for College: Survey finds alarming gap between college expectations and readiness in middle school students, an article reporting on the study, begins:

"Although a vast majority of American middle school students say they plan on attending college after high school, only one-third of them are aware of what it will take to get there, according to a recent nationwide survey. The National Association of Secondary School Principals and educational association Phi Delta Kappa International collaborated to interview more than 1,800 seventh- and eighth-grade students about their college plans, discovering that an overwhelming 92 percent said they planned on pursuing a college degree. However, 83 percent of those same students knew close to nothing about the classes it would take to graduate - a number that teachers and school administrators nationwide are calling alarming."

You can read the rest of the article here.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Keeping Faith from Fraying

Recently, Rusty Benson of the American Family Association interviewed me about the issues facing students as they transition from high school to college. The interview appeared in the June edition of AFA's Journal. You can read the interview, Keeping Faith from Fraying, here.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

Comment is at it Again!

Comment Magazine has begun another great series on Making the Most of College. The first article in this installment is by David T. Koyzis entitled Making the most of college: preparing for leadership. The article is described this way:

How should you, an undergraduate student, go about preparing for responsibility, for citizenship, for leadership? Keep your courage up, your eyes wide, and your bookshelf stocked.

And last week Comment finished its previous series on Summer reading. Contributors made book suggestions to help us make wise summer reading choices. Byron Borger’s list, Tasty Summer Selections had some nice things to say about The Outrageous Idea of Academic Faithfulness. Thank you Byron!