Wow! Time flies doesn’t it? It seems like just yesterday I had a house full of toddlers; yet, this weekend our fourth child graduated from high school. With my kids in all stages of beginning adulthood, planning for both high school and college success is at the forefront of my mind. I also teach ACT /College Prep classes at a local co-op; and, I am always looking for materials for my students. High School Prep Genius is one of the materials that I will be using with both my own kids and my co-op students for many years to come. Written by Jean and Judah Burk, High School Prep Genius is distributed by College Prep Genius, the same company that is responsible for the Vocab Café book series and the comprehensive SAT Prep collection. We actually were fortunate to use and review one of the Vocab Café books last year. You can read that review here. High School Prep Genius retails for $29.95 and is intended for parents as well as for students in grades 7+ who intend on attending college in the United States.
I have been using High School Prep Genius with my soon to be eleventh grader, my recent graduate, and my ACT / College Prep class. We started by going through the introductory material in the book and setting up a College and Career Notebook. To do this, we simply used a 3-ring binder with tabbed dividers and made eight different sections for the notebook. The sections are:
1. Four-Year Degree Plan and Four-Year Summer Plan
2. Student Profile
3. High school Classes and Transcript Information
4. Test Prep Chart
5. College Search and Career Choices
6. Scholarship Information and Financial Aid
7. Volunteer Work and Extracurricular Activities
8. Awards and Honors
Once my kids / students had their notebooks set up, they set out with the task of filling out their Four-Year Degree Plan and their Four-Year Summer Plan. Many of my students (as well as my kids) were already well into high school, so filling out their degree plan was enlightening for them. They were able to look back at what classes they had already taken and look forward to classes they are going to be taking. Most of the kids didn’t know the minimum requirements for graduation in the state of Tennessee, so I was able to show those to them and help them work their Four-Year Plan around to make sure those requirements are fulfilled.
The Four-Year Summer Plan was something new to me and to my kids. I have never really taken a planned approach to summer. My kids go to VBS, camps, mission trips, and stay really active over the summer. It had never dawned on me that many of their activities were community service or volunteer type activities that would look great on their transcript. So, the Four-Year Summer Plan is helping me, my own kids, and my students take a look at what they do over the summer and what they can do over the summer to be involved and active instead of lazy.
Next, we worked through the Student Profile. This is a summary of goals, aspirations, and accomplishments of a student’s high school career. It is useful when applying to colleges and writing resumes.
My favorite section of the notebook is the Test Prep Examination Inventory. This section helps the kids keep track of how they do on standardized tests throughout high school. With my own kids, this has been super helpful. I had them write down their login information for various testing websites as well as their test scores. This way, they don’t have to rely on me to find login information when we need to have a test report sent to a college. Also, they don’t have to login every time they need to see their scores.
The remainder of the notebook sections are covered in the rest of the introductory material. There are 88 pages in
Once we completed the introductory material and had notebooks set up, we began covering a chapter per week. The notebooks remain something that the kids add to as needed. They will be added to for the duration of their high school journey. The remaining three sections of High School Prep Genius cover Foundation for Personal Success, Foundation for Academic Success, and Foundation for Future Success. Each of these sections contains 6 chapters. The chapters are fairly short and cover such things as Personal Development, Financial Independence, Effective Studying, and College Essentials. We are almost through with the Foundation for Personal Success section and I have been very pleased. My kids and I read a chapter independently and then we spend time over the rest of the week discussing the chapter and implementing suggestions from the chapter. We have really enjoyed how this section emphasizes being a well-rounded person and striving for health in all areas of life. Students tend to neglect their own physical health, financial health, and relational health at times. By making these areas priority and realizing pitfalls they can experience, students can avoid these pitfalls and be much more ready for college and adulthood. We will be continuing our studies and completing this book over the course of the summer. My eleventh grader is particularly interested in completing it because he is wanting to start college early.
The end of this book includes five different Appendices containing a myriad of extra information about everything from transcripts to text anxiety.
Overall, I recommend this book for upper middle school and high school students as well as for the parents of these students. It is intended as a guide to help take the guess work out of high school, college, and career planning. It would be helpful for both homeschooling and non-homeschooling families.
To read what my friends on the Schoolhouse Review Crew had to say about High School Prep Genius, click on the graphic below.
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