Are you ready for college writing?

According to a survey conducted by the Chronicl of Higher Education, 94% of college professors said that incoming freshmen are not prepared to tackle college level writing. Many educators blame high schools that they don't provide students with a writing intensive curriculum.

Tuft University's student newspaper reported this:

Dave Valdes-Greenwood, an English lecturer and first-year writing teacher at Tufts, said that even AP English courses can leave students' writing skills lacking. Valdes-Greenwood explained that AP writing, though advanced, is still not on the same level as college writing."Honestly, the AP students I have had tend to have a greater wealth of references and past models to work from, but many of them still find the adjustment to college writing [to be] hard,"

"What often trips up an AP student is discovering that good high school writing is still high school writing - I can't tell you the number of students I've had who never got less than an A before their first paper in my class," he said.

"The main difference is that much high school writing is very unadorned - thesis, a body, a conclusion - while better college writing involves more style and sophistication."

Here is something to think about:

“Regardless of a student’s major, the ability to formulate and analyze arguments, both orally and in writing, is absolutely essential to academic success … . We can develop these skills at the postsecondary level, but students need to get a solid foundation in these basics when they are in high school, or they will fall behind quickly in college.”
-English professor, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

"It is a myth that mathematics and math-dependent majors in college do not require strong reading and writing skills. Students have to be able to comprehend complex informational text so they can identify which mathematical operations and concepts to apply to solve a particular problem."
-Economics professor, San Francisco State University

"You can be an excellent mathematician, but if you don't have a complement of verbal skills ... you’ll never be promoted. If you’re looking for high performance, you have to marry the two.
-Supervisor at a small engineering office