GATEWAY GURU

My College Readiness Experience by Jada Gamble 

“My lack of confidence turned into motivation, which turned into an improved SAT score, which turned into being accepted to four universities.”

When I was a junior in high school, I had to take chemistry. I didn’t want to because I thought it was going to be too hard. My friend pulled herself out of chemistry for the same reason. It sounded like a good idea to me so I met with my counselor and transferred out too. By the time I got home from school my mom confronted me about my transfer. I was dumbfounded, how did she know? I asked myself. She told me that she put me back into the chemistry class. I was upset and asked her why. That was a big mistake because she had a laundry list of reasons and I had to sit through them. The number one reason was that without chemistry I could not go to a 4-year college. It took me off the college track. Other reasons were that I’d miss out on skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, math, writing, analytical, communication… she went on and on and then proceeded to tell me that she enrolled me in a college readiness program, WHAT!!

Weeks later I was reluctantly sitting in a small class at Gateway. I didn’t want to be here. My plan was to graduate from high school, move out of the house and share an apartment with my best friend, then go to community college. My mom told me, “you have the aptitude to go straight to a 4-year college from high school and that’s exactly what you are going to do!” My dad was on her side too. There are two very important things that never happen at my house 1. be disrespectful to my parents and 2. disobey my parents. After taking the first practice SAT I was discouraged because I had forgotten a lot of the material. I hadn’t seen it since middle school so I knew the college readiness would help. Applying the strategies I learned from Gateway was to my advantage. My lack of confidence turned into motivation, which turned into an improved SAT score, which turned into being accepted to four universities. I didn't think being accepted would affect me either way but the College Readiness Program gave me the opportunity to decide. I majored in communications and television productions and graduated from the University of La Verne in May 2017.