A Is for Admission

The Timetable Through High School: Is Kindergarten Too Early?

Many parents are convinced that if their children do not get into a first-tier nursery school or kindergarten, they won't get into college. This is not an exaggeration. One has only to look at the influential cover story in the March 1996 issue of New York magazine on this very topic. The article begins, “At New York's elite private schools, the obsessive scramble to get into an Ivy League college is getting increasingly desperate, send-ing hysterical ripples down into nursery schools.” The lead is picked up a page later when the author writes, “For many, the mad scramble to get into the Ivy League starts in infancy, with an utterly mad scramble to get into the right nursery school. ‘I have had conversations with New Yorkers who have kids who are 18 months old asking what preschool should they send their child to to get on a good track for Amherst,’ said Jane Reynolds, Amherst's dean of admissions who, sitting on her campus in western Massachusetts, doesn't know the difference between Episcopal, for example, and All Souls, two of the city's hottest preschools.”^*

I believe, and I speak from my experience of reading the applications of both U.S. and foreign students, that inherently smart children who are stimulated by learning can learn just as much from reading at home as they can in the fanciest schools. It is no surprise that the students who get 800 on the verbal SAT scores are always the ones who were read to a lot and then developed a real love of reading as they grew up. Even if they were not challenged in school, these children could read in their spare time and thus learn many of the skills necessary to succeed in college.

I believe that if you can read and write well, the rest will follow. Those who are gifted in math but who are weak read-ers and writers will ultimately stand a lesser chance of acceptance at top colleges (unless they apply to very technologically oriented colleges such as Cal Tech and MIT), since it is far more typical to see a strong math/science student than to see a standout humanities student. My advice to parents is not to fixate on which prekindergarten or kindergarten school offers the best programs.

The truth is, it's not the level of competitiveness in these early years that makes children smarter later on, but, rather, the intellectual stimulation and reinforcement they get at home from their parents and siblings. A love of learning and reading is almost always instilled in students in the home, not in the school. There are plenty of brilliant students who were sent to very ordinary, not particularly distinguished schools all their lives and still manage to shine, just as there are many average students who have attended the finest schools from prekindergarten to high school.

Therefore, in terms of stimulating your children's minds, instilling a love of reading, and developing lifelong interests, kindergarten age is not too early to begin but it is too early to obsess over finding the top-notch kindergarten program in your area.

MIDDLE SCHOOL/JUNIOR HIGH

As parents, if you know your children are able to handle the challenge and the teachers agree, select all available honors-track courses when they are offered. That way, by the time your children enter high school, they will be taking the most advanced courses. Especially in high schools that weight grades (that is, assign added point value to advanced-level classes), students will not be competitive unless they are taking a challenging course load. In this respect, students are judged relative to the norm in their high school. If at high school X, most of the top students take five Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes,* students will not be seen as competitive if they take only three such classes, even if they have higher grades than the person taking a more demanding schedule of classes. There are some high schools that count all their course work as honors and therefore limit the number of APs or IBs a student can take. So, at that particular high school, three APs or lBs might be the limit. It is the college counselor's job to fill in the appropriate box under “Strength of course load” (“Less demanding than average”; “Average college-bound program”; “More demanding than average”; “Most demanding available”) correctly.

Sometimes the admissions officers know a high school so well that they can add to the college counselor's assessment through careful examination of a high school record. Many highly competitive colleges keep files or notebooks on high schools. Georgetown, for example, has its officers write an extensive report on every high school they visit, complete with notes about grading systems, representative course loads, where students typically attend college, and any other material that would help them to evaluate students from that high school. They even keep track of which students have been accepted over the past few years and what their class rank and/or GPA was. In cases like these, an informed officer might know that the joint English/art double-period class at a certain high school is actually much harder than AP English, or that AP physics has a much harder teacher than AP biology. Remember that admissions officers are each assigned regions—a collection of states or areas around the country—and are expected to read about and visit these areas. For example, my region for three or four years included all the schools in Westchester and Rockland counties in New York, as well as schools in Ohio, Florida, Indiana, and some other areas, so I had a chance to get to know the schools in those areas well. Many of the old guard who have been in admissions for a while will not only be familiar with the subtleties of specific course loads but will also know who the strongest. teachers are and what their recommendations are like.

I will talk more specifically in chapter 9 about how to present yourself and your strengths, but for now, I will discuss some basics so you know exactly when you need to do what. One of the most important things you need to do in the eighth or ninth grade is to take a challenging course load while at the same time pursuing your academic interests. When you get to high school, you don't want to get off to a slow start academically. If you are taking all honors classes and start out in ninth grade not working up to potential, you will not be noticed by teachers and you might be dropped into a less competitive track. While admissions officers definitely look for grade trends (that is, if you had a weak ninth-grade year but achieved all A's after that), you don't want to dig yourself a hole you can't climb out of To top it off, if you start by get-ting C's in honors classes, teachers won't be that impressed by you, and if you have the same teachers or their colleagues in later years, your reputation might precede you.

There is no doubt that teachers talk among themselves, especially about extreme cases—that is, their worst and best students. You want to be in the latter category so that teachers in the upper grades will look forward to having you in their classes. Though grading aims to be objective, if teachers have heard from their colleagues how brilliant you are, they are going to be predisposed to recognize your talents early on. In a sense, your academic strength and the impression you make on teachers during your early years of high school can have a huge impact on how you do academically in your later years and on the respect accorded to you by faculty.

WHAT IF YOU ARE THE SHY, QUIET TYPE?

If you know you are extremely shy and are hesitant to speak up in class, you need to confront this problem early on. It wouldn't be a bad idea to take a speech class or elect an activity like Model United Nations or debate so you can learn how to present oral arguments in front of a crowd. I have read hundreds of essays about how students overcame their natural shyness through de-bating or other kinds of leadership positions, and I am convinced that this kind of activity helps. The problem is that if you are a straight A student, teachers will not praise you as much if you are very quiet, because you might not add much to class discussions. In fact, one of the boxes on the teacher recommendation form is “Effective participation in class,” and if your teacher checks off “Rarely participates,” you run the risk of having admissions officers say, “Well, if he rarely participates in his high school classes, what will he add to his college classes?”

Try to make an effort early on to speak out in class. As obvious as this sounds, it always helps to be prepared for class. Often, especially in larger classes, teachers will ask basic questions from the homework assignment, and they are not looking for a complex answer, just a factual response. If you make it obvious by constantly answering these questions that you have done the reading assignments and that you are interested in the class, teachers will take note.

You'll notice that many naturally brilliant students are chronically unprepared for class because they tend to rely on what they already know instead of trying to keep up with assigned work. This means that even if you are in a class with older and more advanced students, you can still stand out and get the teacher's attention by displaying a love of the subject and a high level of preparation. Go out of your way, especially if you are in a large class, to volunteer at least one or two well-thought-out comments in class. If you are particularly interested in something, request additional reading. Down the road, teachers will comment, “She used to come to my office to discuss literature. I got her started on Jane Austen, and then she proceeded to tackle Victorian literature, always returning to tell me what she thought.”

WHAT ABOUT GRADE GRUBBING AND WORKING FOR THE GRADE?

In short, try to avoid ubade grubbing. If you are unhappy with a grade, my advice is to work harder on the next paper and talk to the teacher, but make it clear that the grade is not what matters, just the process of learning the material. Don't have your parents go marching in to complain that you will never get into a good college with B grades; don't tell teachers that you have never gotten a B before, so they must be wrong. Be humble, participate in class, and impress your teacher with your sense of maturity and character. The last thing you want to come across as is a spoiled whiner who can't accept low grades.

Remember that teachers will also be filling in boxes on your character and commenting on it in their recommendations. All of their academic praise can be undermined by one reference to “working for the grade.” The best thing teachers could say about you is, “Unlike all the hypercompetitive students I had in my calculus class, Phil really steered clear of all that and let his interest in math carry him through the class.” That is the kind of comment that is noticed by an ad-missions staff. Needless to say, it also makes you stand out much more from those of your peers who seem much less interested (by comparison) in learning the material. The worst thing that teachers could say on your college application is that you are constantly pestering them for a higher grade. From an admissions standpoint, grade grubbing is the antithesis of what the highly selective colleges are seeking. The grade grubber is not interested in learning for learning's sake, but, rather, in learning as a utilitarian process for getting ahead.

Keep in mind that the operative questions admissions officers always ask are these: “What will they add to our college? What kind of impact will they have?” The number-one student with average test scores who achieves through slhaishly hard work but doesn't contribute much to classroom discussions and is barely noticed by teachers except for good testing ability is less attractive because his major contribution will be studying really hard and trying to get good grades in college. In contrast, the more interesting, dynamic applicants will be the ones who are achieving and contributing in the classroom, pushing their professors, and raising the level of discussion.

I'd urge students to take a strong look at themselves and their motivations for achieving. Are your parents forcing you to do hours of homework when you'd be happier shooting hoops in the driveway? Do you dread the thought of plowing through novels for your English class? Why do you want to get A's? Are you truly interested in your classes, or do you view them just as stepping-stones to success? I put the word success in italics because I'd like to highlight an obvious fact: You don't even have to go to college, much less an Ivy League school, to be successful. Plenty of self-made millionaires (if money happens to be how you define success) made their money through hard work and insightful marketing. If your goal is to make money but you don't enjoy studying or reading, don't waste your time by trying to get into an Ivy League or highly selective college. I say this because the beauty of an Ivy League/highly selective education lies in the intellectual atmosphere and the collegial bonds formed among students interested in similar ideas and fields. It does not lie in the prestige of having a diploma from Princeton or Dartmouth on your wall. You would be much better served at a more trade-oriented school where you could major in something practical rather than theoretical. Similarly, if you are achieving only to please your parents so they can brag about you to their friends, you need to think seriously about wasting their money (more than $100,000) at an Ivy League school, when it is clear that you would struggle or, at the very least, not appreciate the opportunities.

TIME TIPS FOR TAKING TESTS IN HIGH SCHOOL

Let's assume that you are taking competitive classes at your high school. As early as ninth grade, you need to be thinking about taking SAT II subject tests. Everyone makes a big deal of the SAT I, but don't forget that the Ivies place equal weight on the SAT II subject tests (which until recently were known as achievement tests). You will see in later chapters just how important both of these tests are.

The big difference between the SAT I and the SAT IIs is that you really can study for the latter. Unlike the SAT I, the subject tests (SAT Ills) last only an hour and cover a very narrow range of material, which can be prepped for. Even if your high school class in a specific subject wasn't very strong academically, you can buy a prep book for any subject test and teach yourself areas not covered in class. These tests are offered in many more areas than you would imagine: Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, two levels of math, writing, literature, biology, chemistry, physics, American history, and so on. Most of the Ivy League schools require three of these subject tests.

The good news is that there are at least twenty different tests (with new ones being added every year). Select only the ones you are good at. If you are terrible in math, don't take the math subject tests. If you love American history, review the material covered on the exam and take it. Do check the requirements for each college you are applying to, because some vary slightly in terms of testing requirements. The most important advice I can give you is to take the SAT II subject tests at the end of the year, immediately after completing the corresponding class. If you take biology in ninth grade, don't wait until the following fall to sign up for the test; take it in June, right after you finish the class. The other crucial thing is to start early—that is, in the ninth grade. Ideally, you will want to take four to six tests so that when colleges select your three strongest, they will be excellent.

As a reference for parents, students, and counselors, I have provided a timetable for all four high school years that is geared towards gaining admission to a highly selective college.

ACADEMIC PLANNING

• Try to ensure that you are in all or nearly all of the advanced-level classes that are available.

• Make your voice heard in class so teachers can get to know you better.

• Sort through all the extracurricular activities available in your high school, with an eye toward participating for four years in those that truly interest you. Colleges like to see long-term commitment. It Bs fine to start something and then drop out, but try to have at least two or three in-depth involvements that will be three- or four-year commitments.

• Set up a schedule for yourself so you don't fall behind. The study habits you develop as a freshman will be the basis for your success later on.

• Many ninth graders are young and somewhat immature. Avoid the temptation to leave academics behind to join the slacker group. Remember, a really weak ninth-grade year will lower your overall rank by senior year.

• During your spring break, buy one or two SAT II preparation books with actual tests so you can begin to review and study for the appropriate tests.

• Try to find a one-month or perhaps two-week college program at one of the top summer schools so you can pursue a subject you might not have had time to find out about in high school. Don't commit to the whole summer, because you want to have fun, too, while getting your feet wet academically.

• Over the summer, read, read, and read in your spare time: novels, newspapers, scientific journals, et cetera. By reading many different literary styles and genres, you will be doing the best kind of preparation for the SAT verbal section. This is much cheaper than taking a Stanley Kaplan course, and it is equally effective in many cases. The more you read, the more your vocabulary and reading comprehension will increase and the more you will be able to raise your score on the SAT verbal section.

• Start a list of your extracurricular involvements that you can add to each year.

• Keep reading novels, magazines, quality newspapers, or any other challenging texts in your spare time.

• The more familiarity you have with the SAT I, the better you will do when you take the test. Rather than waiting until junior year, take the PSAT this year as a practice. Colleges never see PSAT scores, just SAT scores.

• Are you enjoying your sports or other extracurricular activities? Do you have any new interests you want to pursue? Now is the time to change around a little but still have a solid three-year commitment by senior year.

• Keep up with your homework. If you are doing less well than you expected in a particular class, talk to the teacher and ask what you could do to improve. Stress that it is not the grade that is worrying you, but, rather, your own disappointment with how you are doing.

• By spring break, evaluate your strong subjects and begin to study for one or two SAT II tests.

• In June, take two or possibly three different SAT II tests.

• During the summer, continue readinffall different kinds of materials. This is when you will have the free time to brush up on your reading and boost your vocabulary and reading comprehension before the barrage of junior-year testing.

• This is a good summer to get a job. Colleges love to see a sense of responsibility, as well as the fact that students have not had everything handed to them. Though everyone will want to be a lifeguard or a camp counselor, try to pick a job that's less cushy, such as working in a retail store or on a construction crew. If you have a particular talent, try to line something up commensurate with your academic skills, such as working in a computer store or for a local paper. If you are an athlete, work on your training here, too.

• To avoid the junior panic, try to fit in three to five college visits over the summer—in June or July, not August, when every other student in the country will be mobbing campuses. Sit in on the information sessions, take a tour, and talk to students. The more you get done this summer, the less panicked you will be the following summer.

• This is the big year for testing. Luckily, if you have been following this schedule so far, you have not saved all your testing for this year and you will have several scores to choose from.

• Take the PSATs when they are offered at your high school. Remember, your status as a National Merit semi-finalist or National Merit finalist will be determined by your PSAT scores, not your SAT scores.

• This should be your hardest academic year, since you will ideally be taking many honors, AP, or IB classes. Colleges look upon your junior year as a crucial one. This is the year when you really want to focus and go for the very best grades possible. Let your academic interests direct you. If you get involved researching a paper, feel free to go beyond the basic course requirements in pursuing your topic. This is the year you want to impress your teachers and excel in all your classes. Pursue your interests outside of class, as well.

• Take the SAT I for the first time. You will have other chances to improve these scores. Sleep well the night before and eat a healthy breakfast the morning of the test.

• After getting through the SAT I, take one or two more SAT II tests in the spring. Start preparing for them the month before by taking practice tests and filling in gaps in your knowledge.

• Save college visits and interviews for summer so that you don't have to miss classes.

• If you have found a good academic program already or have a good idea for a new one, this is the perfect summer to participate. Be adventurous.

• If you really can't afford one of the se programs or are unable to get scholarship assistance, continue to work over the summer, since work is considered an important factor in your admission.

• Sometime during the summer—and I would strongly suggest June or July, not August, when the entire country will join you—visit colleges that you are interested in. Attend the group information sessions, go on the tour, and talk to students at each college. This way, if you do decide to apply early decision, you will have had time to visit all the colleges you are interested in.

• Everytime you visit a college, fill out a visitation sheet at the admissions office so you will be on the mailing list for an application.

• If you are really interested in a college, schedule an on-campus interview a few weeks ahead of time. Schools are much less busy in June and July, so that is an ideal time. If you wait until the fall of your senior year, you will have to miss classes, which is not advisable, since your fall grades are crucial this year.

• At the end of the summer, narrow down your college list and be sure to request applications from all the colleges you are considering.

• Before school starts, try to do as much research as you can on the colleges that interest you. Read about them in college guidebooks (go to your public library and spend some time reading through these books), surf the Internet, and talk to college-age friends who might be around during the summer.

• Think about applying early decision if you have had time to make a final decision about your first-choice college.

• Evaluate your testing record. If you already have high scores on the SAT I, don't bother taking it again. If you think you can improve, take the test one more time in the early fall.

• Evaluate your SAT Ills, as well. If you don't have three scores you are happy with, retake one or two of the tests in October or November.

• Send your scores to the colleges you are applying to.

• Start working on your college essays so you don't have to dash them off in a hurry later on. You will have to write several essays and drafts in order to produce a strong essay.

• Keep up your grades! Colleges look at your senior grades, even for spring term. This is no time to slack off after so much hard work.

• If you are applying under either an early-decision or early-action plan, work on your application so you can postmark it by the deadline, usually November first or fifteenth.

• If you are not applying early decision, you have up until the February test dates to take and improve upon your SAT Is and SAT IIs.

• Get your applications done by January 1st.

• Take a deep breath—you have made it this far!

Whew! Even if you are able to do half the things on this list, you will be ahead of most college applicants, who typically save everything to the last minute. With careful planning, you can have a much calmer high school experience and avoid the panic of taking tests late in the year in a desperate attempt to get a few high scores. If you have had a chance to visit colleges and have a clear first choice, early decision or early action might be a good option for you. We will turn to these options in the following chapter.

WHAT ABOUT SAT PREP COURSES?

Before closing this discussion on high school planning, I will address the question of prep classes such as Princeton Review, Kaplan, or other private classes geared toward preparation for standardized testing. As much as I would like to offer an authoritative statement—for example, “I believe you should never take a prep course,” or “To be competitive, you must take a prep course”—this kind of oversimplification is impossible. The real issue is familiarity with the test. The more familiar you are with the format of the SAT I, the types of questions asked, the amount of time you should devote to each question, the better you will do. This is why students who take the test more than once almost always raise their scores each time, even if only by a little bit.

If you are disciplined enough to take practice tests (which you can request directly from the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey), you will become intimately familiar with the test and will probably not need a prep course. If, however, you are the kind of student who would never be motivated enough to practice on your own, a prep course would give you the discipline to study the test and to take practice tests.

When I was a high school student, I thought to myself, Why should my parents have to pay hundreds of dollars for a prep course when I could devote a few weekends to taking practice tests, reading a few guidebooks with helpful test hints, and becoming intimately familiar with the test? By the time I took the SATs, I knew exactly how long I should spend on each question, which sections I could move through quickly and which ones I should take more time on, and how many I could leave blank and still score over 650 or 700. It took some time and some independent study, but in the end, I know I would have been bored to death in a prep course, when all the information I needed was in printed form in any good bookstore. On the other hand, I had some friends who could not find the time or the motivation to read about helpful hints for the tests, and who were incapable of spending a few hours in their house taking practice tests. For them, I think prep classes were helpful in disciplining them to learn as much as possible about the test.

You will notice that I haven't focused very much on the issue of learning the actual material on the test. This oversight is intentional, because it is my personal belief that the main purpose of prep courses is to familiarize students with the test and to teach test-taking techniques that can go a long way in raising a score. What they are not tremendously helpful for is teaching the material for the SAT I, because it is fundamentally an aptitude test, not a knowledge-based test. This difference is most obvious on the verbal section.

Whether you prepare on your own or take a prep class to help you with the verbal section, you will not become a more insightful reader, only a more insightful test-taker—this distinction is crucial. The verbal section is designed to see how strong a reader you are, how you think and reason, and how you process information in prose form. As any SAT instructor can tell you, learning test-taking techniques and familiarizing yourself with the test can raise your score up to a certain point, especially if you are starting from a low level. It is not uncommon, either through private study or an organized prep course, to raise a verbal score from 450 to 600 or from 570 to 680. What is almost impossible is to jump into the 720 to 800 range, even if you are starting in the high 600s. With a few exceptions, the students who score over 740 or so are simply voracious readers, students who have been reading seriously since they were very young and have continued to do so all their lives.

Every time I have seen a student with an 800 verbal score, there has been confirmation throughout the application that the student is a reader—teachers mention it, the student often talks about loving literature from a young age and reading a lot throughout middle school and high school, and guidance counselors allude to it. No amount of test-taking preparation can earn you an 800 verbal score, because that requires a lifetime devoted to reading. That is why in my timetable I mention that students should increase their reading load two years prior to taking the SAT I, since that will go much further in helping to raise a verbal score than taking a prep course.

The SAT I math section is a little different. Although it is designed to test aptitude, it is possible to prepare for the math section to a greater extent than the verbal section. Again, you won't get an 800, but even a weak math student can learn enough tips, patterns, and finite material (after all, the math SAT I is not based on an infinite curriculum; it covers the same topics over and over, using slightly different examples and problems each time) to score over 600. Depending on the student and his mathematical background and motivation for private study, he can determine the necessity of taking a prep course or studying on his own. Many students have such a natural math ability that a course would be superfluous; all they need to do is familiarize themselves with the format of the test so they don't have to waste valuable time reading the somewhat complicated directions.

In short, prep courses can be helpful for many students, although they are certainly not necessary. What students need to do is know the test format, directions, and strategies extremely well so that they can go in and do their highest-level work. The best strategy for determining the necessity of taking a class is to take an actual SAT I test at home, score it, and examine your score. If you are scoring between 300 and 600, either a prep course or private study will probably raise your score, sometimes significantly. if you are already scoring over 650, you probably just need to brush up on a few areas, practice more, and become intimately familiar with the test.