How Can High Schoolers Remain College Ready During the Pandemic?

Are you the parent of a high school student wondering how you can keep them on track for college during the COVID-19 pandemic? Though there's been much discussion about how students have had to adapt to quarantine and school closings, the unique challenges faced by high-school Juniors and Seniors haven't gotten as much attention. So how can these students continue to prepare for college during these difficult times?

At Mighty B Learning, our college prep tutoring team has been working hard to help students just like yours stay on track for college despite the uncertainty of the pandemic. While this includes adapting our regular services (like test prep tutoring and one-on-one SAT tutoring) to meet pandemic safety guidelines, it also means finding ways for students and their families to stay on track for college through new habits.

By making some or all of these changes to your teen's routine, you can ensure that they are remaining focused. With your support, they can overcome the pandemic's obstacles and continue working towards a brighter future for themselves. Here are our top suggestions to help your student stay prepped for college.

1. Use A Planner
Your teen is used to a rigid schedule at school —  they know where they need to be, when, and how long. It's easy to remember because every student is on a similar schedule themselves. So chances are, they don't need to use a planner at school. At home, however, it's a different story.

If your student is still remote learning, they must learn how to best manage their free time to ensure they meet their goals without burning out. A planner does this by creating accountability and committing everything to paper. Students can easily let things slip when they're doing everything from home, but there's no excuse with a planner. 

2. Explore Extracurricular Activities
While solid grades may be the best way to impress college admission counselors, students with a history of participating in extracurricular activities have an additional advantage over those that don't. Colleges are always looking for students who happily get involved in their communities and are eager to learn new skills. Unfortunately, however, the pandemic has eliminated many of the options traditionally offered by schools, like sports and clubs.

A student willing to search for themselves will find opportunities outside of school to get involved, and they can be just as valuable. The availability of such activities will vary depending on your location, but there's no shortage of volunteer opportunities that will look good on a college application. If you're having trouble finding activities locally, you may be able to find communities online to fill the same role. 

3. Utilize Online Tutoring
Remote learning doesn't mitigate the need for individual, personalized attention for some students. However, whether providing SAT tutoring, ACT tutoring, GRE tutoring, or help with specific subjects, private tutoring helps students achieve more in many ways. Best of all, you can do tutoring entirely online.

Online tutoring services from Mighty B Learning cater to your student's individual needs through patience, understanding, and familiarity. Once they begin working with your student, one of our tutors can provide homework help online and build study strategies so they can learn and retain more. Tutors also act as another layer of accountability during a time when your student may not be able to attend school.

4. Build A Healthy Learning Environment
Working from home provides many distractions for students. With remote learning depending on a computer and internet access, it can be tempting to open a new browser tab and skim social media for a few minutes. Then a few minutes becomes a few more minutes, and before long hours are lost.

Some distractions are inevitable, but you and your student can do your best to eliminate as many as possible to help keep them focused. Consider the room where they are learning in, for example. If it's their bedroom, all their favorite devices are within arm's reach and could make for an easy distraction.

An easy way to limit distractions is by having your teen do all of their school activities—including remote learning—in another room of your home. Make sure it's still comfortable and quiet with fewer opportunities for them to get sidetracked. Doing so ensures they will get the most out of their learning time.

5. Take Time To Relax
A college-bound student will be busier in their last two years of high school than at any previous point in their education. Their workload grows but the amount of time available to them doesn't. They may have to push themselves to meet all their deadlines, but make sure that they make time for themselves.  

Relaxation is beneficial to brain functions related to learning, like memory and comprehension, but it's also needed to maintain drive and energy. Though it may be tempting to cram now when students are spending so much time at home, doing so can negatively affect mental health. Instead, encourage breaks and engage in relaxing activities to keep your teen grounded and balanced. 

How To Set Your Student Up For Success 
We know how hard it is for families to prepare their students for the college application process. Trying to help your student with their academics all the while reading up on and preparing for college applications can be a challenge.

We're here to help make sure you can focus on the admissions while we focus on academics.

At Mighty B Learning, we can help your student prepare for their admissions journey through our comprehensive tutoring services. Not only are our services highly personalized, but we offer real solutions for individual students’ academic success.

Contact us today, and let’s talk about how we can set your student up to live out their dreams at their dream school.