Sophomore Dalamar Read meticulously plans ahead to stay on track with his post-high school goals

According to sophomore Dalamar Read, preparing for college is all in the planning, specifically with regards to classes. Read plans on majoring in something related to chemistry in college and has planned out his high school class schedule to help reach this goal.

Read has planned out his high school schedule down to the class and has even begun looking at specific colleges like KU, K-State, Harvard, Duke, Caltech and London Imperial College. Read maps out this planning on a spreadsheet. He describes the classes he plans on taking his junior and senior years to stay on track with his plan.

“Next year, I’m taking AP Chemistry with Biotechnical Engineering at CTEC,” Read said. “Then I’m taking AP Physics I and II senior year, maybe AP Physics C, AP Biology and Introduction to Organic Chemistry.”

Additionally, Read’s rigorous planning and preparation will potentially allow him to not only get ahead on college credits, but also save money.

“I want to take all the liberal arts classes like English credits so I won’t have to pay $2,000 a credit-hour for wherever I decide to go,” Read said. “It’s mostly just getting the easier classes out of the way so I don’t have to pay more money for them. That’s especially important for calculus next year. It’ll be a state credit [which] doesn’t transfer too well, [instead] it’ll be showing me what the college class would look like. If I do have to retake Calculus in college, I’ve already seen the material and it’ll be easier to go through. This way I won’t decide that it is too difficult in a 300-person class that costs a lot of money and then drop it and spend more money than necessary.” 

On a similar note, Read considers taking dual-credit programs more consistent for college credit than AP tests, so he does programs like College Now, offered by Johnson County Community College, whenever possible.

“If there’s a College Now program, instead of an AP test, I would rather do that,” Read said. “As the AP test seems to be really strict and difficult to pass successfully. I feel like I would have a worse shot at the credit for college if I were to take the AP test. 

This sort of planning ahead has also helped Read to consider his post-highschool options wisely.

“I’ve started making a list of [college criteria],” Read said. “I want to narrow down requirements for a college. One particular college that had [a degree I was interested in], the London Imperial College, [made me] think about being out of the United States. I’ve also thought about doing a gap year, or just travel and see where I would want to live. I don’t really know yet. I haven’t made a solid decision.”

Despite the fact that he has not made any final decisions, starting the planning process early has helped Read avoid the college-related stress that many students know all too well.

“[I’m excited about] having a better understanding,” Read said. “Whenever I go into college I know I won’t be lost as a freshman. I’ll know what I’m doing.”