Excerpts from Secrets from the Cradle to College Admission at MIT and the Ivy League
Introduction
“Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men,–the balance-wheel of the social machinery.”
–Horace Mann
In late March of 1996 Mark called home excitedly to tell us that he had gotten a very thick envelope from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology( MIT).The letter from Mr. Michael Behnke, the Director of Admissions, read, “ Congratulations! You are admitted to MIT! On behalf of the Committee on Admissions, let me welcome you as a member of the Freshman Class entering MIT in September 1996. You, your family and your school have reason to be proud of your achievements.” In order to get this prized letter, Mark began a journey many years ago as a small child. He had great assistance and encouragement from us, as parents, other family members, his teachers and friends. The accomplishment required hard work and sustained effort. For that, Mark deserves all the credit. He decided long ago to seek excellence, and fortunately his quest has been successful. This book is about that journey and the ideas and strategies that were employed. The objective is to provide a roadmap for any individual or family who would like to follow some of the ideas that we developed over the past few years. These ideas are not written in stone, they are things that Mark did which promoted his development as an individual and helped him to begin to realize his potential.
Before our two sons were born, I thought about the need to be an activist parent. I thought that anyone born who were provided with optimal nurturing could realize a fantastic potential in life. In order to provide this nurturing, it was necessary to search the world high and low and begin a through research of the relevant issues surrounding this concept. I began reading everything about early childhood development-biology, the psychology, and the sociology of this period. If I could find out the key elements of child-rearing based on sound scientific research and parental love and affection, I could implement them with my youngster to his benefit.
Why MIT and the Ivy League?
The reason this book focuses on MIT and the Ivy League is because of the simple reason that MIT, in particular represents for the 20th century, the most challenging scientific educational program on the planet earth. The 21st century will be even more technologically oriented, and preparation for the new century in a premier technological institution like MIT is a worthy and challenging goal. There was no original strategic plan to specifically get into MIT, however, the original idea was “to shoot for the stars” and establish lofty goals. The Ivy League colleges exemplify these academic stars. They represent to most selective educational institutions in the country and are regularly ranked among the top schools in the country academically. By having this lofty goal, the preparation would potentially qualify our son for these most selective and demanding colleges in America. The positive result of the strategic plan was the opportunity to attend a school that could prepare him for the realities of the 21st century. When our son received a the letter announcing that he had been accepted to matriculate at MIT beginning in the fall of 1996 he was prepared to take advantage of this rare opportunity. He also received letters of acceptance from 13 other selective colleges. This book will focus on what happen before that letter arrived. Mark began preparing several years earlier for this possibility.
We started preparing Mark before he was born. This centered on striving to make ourselves knowledgeable parents. We learned the biology of development, with particular emphasis on neural development in order to prepare ourselves for the task of teaching an infant, a toddler, and the teenage years through the successive stages of growth and development. This research paid off. We were keenly aware of the problem of over doing things and possibly stretching the child too far. The knowledge of the biology of development kept us within bounds and balance yet kept us challenging and stretching the youngster. Our philosophy can be summarized to the three most important things to do for you child, by the phrase, “ stimulate, stimulate, and stimulate.” In order to promote the development of the brain and promote the hardwiring of important connections for learning and intelligence it has been shown that various and diverse forms of stimulation are necessary. We attempted to do this early in Mark’s development and throughout his childhood and teenage years. Organizing informal and formal activities was a systematic way to promote stimulation and motivation.
A potent instrument that we used with the children was the activity list. This idea was very simple. On partial days during the school year and full days during summer vacation, activity lists were prepared that outlined things that can be accomplished throughout the day. As soon as the child is old enough, he has to make out his own list that is then approved by us. This strategy helps to develop structure in the way the child approaches things. This is essentially a to-do list which is key to corporate executives or any workers accomplishing success in their job.
The talent of the upcoming generation is very important for the world of the 21st century and the Third Millennium. There are enormous problems in the world today and greater ones ahead in the next century. We need brains and talent to solve these problems. The education of capable and dynamic talent is needed. The cultivation of this potential talent by well informed parents is important for the future of the world.
Starting Very Early
“Everyone of us has the potential of greatness, waiting to be developed”
-Anonymous
Critical Issues List
• Provide an exhilarating environment
• Stimulate, stimulate, stimulate
• Promote the joy of learning
Mark, our first son, was born in Paramaribo, Suriname, on January 10, 1978. We, as a family, displayed nomadic tendencies by venturing abroad to live and seek the marrow of life in foreign lands. The first land we chose was a small South American country of 400,000 poly-ethnic people on the northeast corner of the continent, which was over 85 % covered by Amazonian rain forest. Mark was born with the help of several midwives, under rather primitive conditions in this tropical land. During the delivery, which took over 10 hours, I spent the day in the delivery room helping coach Mark’s mother while reading the book, Future Shock by Alvin Toffler. The experience of seeing a new life come into the world was extraordinary and astonishing. We knew as parents that we would have to make a special effort to give this newborn the opportunity to succeed and possibly excel in life. Everything we read emphasized the importance of providing a stimulating environment for children. We took this idea as our theme throughout Mark’s childhood. From the day he was born, we played enormously with Mark. Mark was very good natured and was ready for games at any time. We tended to make our games mentally challenging. During his first two years of life we lived in Paramaribo, Suriname. My work hours for the Ministry of Health freed me up in the early afternoon. Upon returning home I’d spend a major block of time with Mark. Words and numbers were central to our interactions. I began calling out numbers when he first came home as an infant from the hospital. Reading children’s books to him followed closely. Irrespective of whether I thought he understood, I read incessantly. I intuitively believed that he understood more than we adults gave him credit for.
The research evidence has subsequently revealed that children begin understanding language in the womb. Reading was indeed a pleasure for me, and I could always pickup the beam in Mark’s eyes as the words sang forth. These words made him a stimulated baby, in addition to being a happy baby. As he grew older we became more sophisticated in our approach. We acquired a 16-kilobyte Interact computer that utilized audiotape for data input. Although primitive by today’s standards, this computer technology became an integral part of Mark’s perspective and outlook. He learned his basic mathematical computational skills with the game called Touchdown. As the players advance across the field, he had to calculate the yardage in his head. If he got a certain number correct, he would get a touchdown. This was the visual reward on the screen for his efforts. This made math fun and let him increase his confidence about the subject. We built on this with other math games. We later expanded to word games. Today’s games are far more developed and visually appealing and, certainly, any parent should make computers with the best of today’s educational materials available for their children.
A favorite trick we employed was to use the refrigerator as a huge household billboard. On this billboard we placed magnetic letters of immense quantity all over the surface. Words, words, words would form and disappear. We always played question-and-answer games regarding words and numbers until Mark took great pride in getting things correct consistently. His esteem was rising rapidly as he progressed from strength to strength. The words on the refrigerator began to become more complex. We kept buying more magnetic letters to keep pace with his rapidly expanding world of words.
By the time we returned to the U.S. to live, Mark was a two-year-old and his younger brother Geoffrey was a one-year-old. We began a systematic exposure of our sons to library books. Our routine was sacred. We made weekly trips to the local library in Beaverton, Oregon. We provided free browsing time for them and gave them a chance to pick out the books that they had the slightest interest in. As parents, we threw in a few books that we thought were interesting and at checkout time we had no less than 20 books on each trip. These books provided reading and discussions during the upcoming week.
Every night before bedtime, we would pull out a book and curl up on the bed and read out loud to Mark. The books were left in a conspicuous place so that any time he wanted to read a book, he could pick up the book and enjoy it at his own leisure. We deliberately attempted to have the books compete with television. We did this by keeping the books in a place close by and keeping the TV off as much as possible.
Overnight, reading became a natural habit for Mark. He easily sailed through those books in a week’s time and we were required to increase the number, just to keep pace. It was astonishing to us to see so much interest on his part. He became a voracious reader and listener. It reached a point where we could not put our children to bed unless someone read to them. It was the law, their law. They demanded it. We did not realize it but they were steadily increasing their neuronal linkages through this process and those new nervous linkages were becoming hardwired in their brains.
We focused on acquiring educational-oriented toys. These, we found to further stimulate their thinking and brain development. Most importantly, the toys were a source of fun and enjoyment. The joy of childhood is something we, as parents, never lost sight of, and we found no contradiction between joy and the serious pursuit of knowledge. For example, we stayed away from guns as a toy modality. Over time, we clearly saw that our children were having as much fun as other children who focused on guns. We were particularly attracted to puzzles and problem-solving type toys.
These toys always challenged Mark and, to our surprise, he solved many of the puzzles we bought for him. Of course, some were too difficult and remained unsolved but we worked with him on some of these puzzles to minimize the sense of frustration that he might experience.
Another type of toy we focused on were construction sets. From the myriad of construction sets, Mark could build a universe of things. He was limited only by his imagination. We found this type of toy to be particularly good because true creativity and innovation could manifest itself. The joy and sense of accomplishment he experienced upon completion of a big construction project were boundless. We firmly believe that the emotions the child experienced after building a large airplane, a large ship, or building a city are special feelings that he will seek to duplicate when he gets older.
Later, we found him willing to take on big projects at a relatively young age (more later in the section on Boy Scouts).
The importance of the nervous system’s development is exemplified by over 50,000 of a human being’s 100,000 genes being devoted to the nervous system construction. During the crucial early development of the brain, there are windows of opportunity that parents and guardians must take advantage of in order to optimize developmental prospects of their children. For example, the syntax-acquiring window may close as early as five years of age. The early wiring of the brain and the early growth spurts suggest that language acquisition begins very early and should be stimulated by parents. Exposure to new words through reading and talking are critical. The baby that is talked to the most, advances the most rapidly in language skills.
Modern neurological science with rigorous scientific evidence suggests that the first three-years-of life is a crucial period in the development of the child’s brain and should be exploited for helping the child to optimize his or her potential. The brain at birth has over 100 billion neurons. A stimulating environment is essential. Research indicates that a paucity of stimulation and children who are not regularly touched and played with develop small, brains with less synaptic connections between neurons.
The Importance of a Value system
“ Personality can open doors; only character can keep them open.”
-Anonymous
Critical Issues List
Critical questions about maturity and success
• What are the qualities that will ensure our well being in the 21st century?
• What predicts success?
• What is the relationship between test scores and success?
• Who are the most effective functioning adults you know?
Douglas Heath, an educational psychologist researcher, studied 68 Haverford College graduates over a long-term prospective study. One report entitled, “Academic Predictors of Adult Maturity and Competence,” established as it’s objective to find the critical predictors of future success in life. This decades-long research led him to the conclusion that the most important precursor of success was psychological maturity. Most people mistakenly believe that high grades are the best predictors of success but that is not true. Psychological maturity obtained at an early age is the most important factor. There are many things which reflects psychological maturity. Among them is the concept of easily making good friends. The researcher felt that this was so important he felt parents should reward their children for making friends the same way we reward them for making high grades. Consequently, I made it a point to ask Mark about new friendships. If I discovered he made any new ones, I would praise him and express pleasure. Other factors that reflected maturity such as having empathy and respect were also encouraged and promoted. A sense of excellence along with a sense of maturity was considered very important elements for him to incorporate into his character.
Research suggests that the qualities which insure success include having a sense of humor, confidence, energy and enthusiasm, empathy, risk-taking, tolerance, integrity, commitment and devotion, intelligence, adaptability and listening skill.
Other qualities necessary for surviving in the 21st century include caring, adaptability, morality, stress handling, commitment, and skills to survive vocational change.
There is irreversible change taking place in the world today. This is exemplified by the changing role of women. In a survey to determine whether the wife’s career is equal to her husband, 40 percent said “yes” in 1969 while 81 percent said “yes” in 1973. When asked the question, “Do I expect my husband to share equally at home,” 17 percent said “yes” for women in 1969, while 43 percent said “yes” in 1973.
There are also changes in the vocational world. Computers are very important in the workplace today. Surplus personnel are another problem in many fields. During the 1980’s the American Bar Association estimated that there were 96,000 surplus lawyers. Over 45 percent of lawyers are bored with their work. Dental schools were closing and there were over 10-percent surplus physicians, 12-percent surplus surgeons, 45-percent surplus obstetrics and gynecology physicians, and a 20-percent shortage of psychiatrists. Conditions have changed again in the 1990’s. Managed care has reduced the income of physicians and many people are walking away from the profession. It is clear that the students of today most be prepared for even greater changes in the professions of the 21st century. Education will be key to coping with these expected changes. The half-life of technical information is now only seven years long. There is an early burnout in the pursuit of money, status, and power.
What advice can be given to a young person pursuing a career today? The highest priority in education is to empower the individual for self-education. Ideally, children should find out that they can learn. Boys are generally weaker in languages and girls are generally weaker in science. Parents should monitor the attitude of the children over whether they can do something. Most children learn for extrinsic reasons. But they should be learning for the joy of learning. Interpersonal maturity is very important and should be learned from others. Children who can learn without help and plan and set sub-goals demonstrate self-educational skills.
Educational psychology research suggests that there is a relationship between self-education skills and high grades. Studies to determine the predictability of effective functioning adults have used college students who have been followed through various stages of life. These include professionals, actors, musicians, and civil servants. In order to find out what predicts success, factors such as communications skills, relationship with spouse, sex life, parenting skills, vocational happiness, value system, childhood happiness, and what life was like in this home for several days. Were most of the people in a study happy? Yes, 85 percent considered themselves happy. Most consider the ’40s the most happy in life and the period where they could erase self- doubt. This was in spite of monetary problems in many cases. The people in the study were remarkably accomplished people; many had written books, created businesses and there was remarkable continuity in personality development. The most destructive behavior among the study group was alcoholism. Of the ones who became alcoholics, five percent of both men and women pulled themselves out of it.
When determining the characteristics of happiness, over 16 characteristics were linked. Interpersonal maturity had a very important link to happiness. A person who is open to new ideas and new experiences is also happy. And those who were better integrated in their lives were happy. The characteristics that were most strongly associated with happiness in the study group were: caring, honesty, humor, openness, tolerance of people, imagination, dedication, understanding others, respect of others, flexibility, and sensitivity. Other factors that were more important than grades were sense of humor and sensitivity.
Then what predicts success? Grades, for example, predict nothing. The “C” student is just as likely to be an effective manager and an effective person in life as the “A” student. The SAT is no measure of competence in later life. Generally, the higher an aptitude of the SAT the less satisfying were relationships, the less well integrated the person in life, and the less self-confidence they had. It has been said that stripping character and will are more important criteria for accepting people into a profession and grades. Over the last 20 years medicine, for example, has moved from feeling to research centered. The crisis in other profession such as engineering are clearer where many think that the percent of students have doubt that will collapse because of the lack of knowledge of the opposite sex. A study at Harvard revealed that there was no relationship between SAT scores and success. A follow-up was done on dropouts at Harvard and it was found that they scored higher on the SATs and those with psychiatric reasons for dropping out scored much higher.
In a 25-year study of managers at AT&T, those with the highest aptitude tended to be people who were less happy and more maladjusted. This has led to the hypothesis that the higher the aptitude the more the risk. It is possible that children who are more talented are less integrated in life. In many cases, children with higher aptitude had fewer friends and were not sensitive to others. Those who were most academically talented initiated fewer contacts with their peers. Highly talented children who made contacts with their peers generally have more interpersonal maturity.
What are the predictors of success? The SAT -I exam provides no clue to intellectual maturity. The best predictors are extracurricular and self-sustaining activities and hobbies of the child. Are you a loving parent who has firm expectations of the children? Parents have to be good role models for the children. The father and the mother should be actively engaged in the education of the child. The care and concern for the emotional health of the child are very critical to the early years of growth and development. The relationship between parent and child should be based on unconditional positive regard.
In the Art of Loving, Eric Frome describes something called the unconditional mother’s love which gives the children the feeling that they are loved for who they are. But what predicts whether a daughter will turn out to have a fulfilling motherhood? The best predictor is a parental home that is not tensed with conflict. The parents enjoyed being parents, were openly affectionate, and the children knew that their parents loved them. The mother was usually warm and affectionate, verbally expressive, respected by the father, and the daughters were encouraged to be independent.
However, the most important predictor of an effective functioning adult is psychological maturity at an early age. The child is psychologically mature when he has an understanding of self and is able to put into symbols experiences, perceptions and reflections. This child at this stage has grown out of a self-centered way of looking at things. A psychologically mature person shows empathy for others and is respectful and tolerant of others. This is also called internal coherence, which is demonstrated by relational thinking, values, and integrated mutual concern for others. The psychologically mature child is also more stable, resilient under stress, and his values in life are more positive too. This child also has a system for learning and applying the knowledge learned to new situations. He has the ability to refuse drugs and alcohol in spite of peer pressure.
By the time a child reaches 17 years, he has spent 17,000 hours watching television. Some of the television programs are very professional such as Sesame Street which promote the need for entertainment in children. This predisposes the child to be bored. If you take these many hours out of his house life, there will be less time for reading, cooperative behavior, and hobbies. It is therefore important to reduce TV time and replace that time with those productive activities that can support the development of psychological maturity in your child.
Ethics
Teaching ethics is an essential component of a childhood education. The rate of crime, dishonesty, corruption, and social breakdown around the globe can be attributed to poor and anemic exposure of our children to ethical education. Do not negotiate on the important moral ethical questions. History is a series of moral decisions, made or not made. We do nothing in society to a identify and reward ethical talent. We are generally governed by “C” grade average students. Magnet schools are developed for math and science. The first citywide magnet school for ethical leadership was developed in San Diego.
More focus on ethics should permeate the educational system and the foundation should begin in the home. You should not cover leadership in your teaching before covering ethics. In the 1960s, there was great self-esteem but no ethics. Avoid logical imbalances in reading. Teach kids not to tolerate “double-speak”. Expressions that obscure the real meaning of an idea such as the “Peacekeeper Nuclear Missile”, and collateral damage (human victims) should be understood and discounted for what they really are.
Kholberg of Harvard University suggest that children go through certain stages in their understanding of morality and moral reasoning. From his studies, he concluded that children from various international cultures had a common thread of moral development. The stages of his cognitive development theory are as follows:
•Stage 0 is the pre-moral stage and there’s no sense of obligation or morality. Too many children in American grow up and never grow out of this stage.
•Stage 1 is the simple authority orientation stage. This is the obedience and punishment model of morality. Obedience to authority and superior power is the motivating force. This stage should be established as early as possible by parents.
•Stage 2 is called the instrumental relativist. “You scratch my back I’ll scratch yours” or “An eye for an eye” and exchange-all reciprocity are examples of this model.
•Stage 3 is the interpersonal concordance stage. In this base the child considers his own feelings and the feelings of others. The intentions become important. Empathy is characteristic of this stage.
•Stage 4 is the law-and-order state. This is rigid with fixed rules and hard to change. There is respect for authority and majority rule and post-conventional moral development. Only 20 percent of the adult population may reach this level in their late ’20s.
•Stage 5 is the social contract. This is the contractual legalistic orientation.
Stage 6 is sacrifice for others. Great leaders like Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi are examples.
In the ethical continuum of Kholberg, about 4 percent of adults in life reach stage 6 and four percent of adults live life in stage 0. In the great book, The Prince states that “might makes right” and “the end justifies the means.” Political systems generally function in stage 2. There’s a conflict between ethical integrity at stage 6 and stage 2 of the system. This is the basis of all great films. A stage 3 example is A Man of All Season by Beckett. Stage 4 is law and order and an example is the way parents relate to the children. Stage 5 is the social contract. Heroes who suffer for their people are very unique. This is stage six.
Honesty/ Humility/ Spirituality
Lack of arrogance and the presence of humility and compassion are important components to any value system. Some of my toughest conversations with Mark occurred on the issue of a value system and ethics. When there was a problem or if there were critical issues to discuss, Mark’s mother and I played complementary roles. A combination of the tough love and the gentle love approach provided a balance strategy discussing issues and problems. One of us was invariably tough and sometimes uncompromising, and the other pursued the gentle and somewhat yielding approach.
Teaching Mark the importance of right from wrong goes at the core of the value system we tried to stress. We always tried to lead by example. Children do “as you do” more than “as you say.”
The importance of ethics in any value system cannot be over-emphasized. The Wall Street scandals of the 1980s clearly demonstrated that high intelligence and a high level of education are not sufficient to succeed in the highly competitive field of business and finance. A highly ethical value system is equally important. Many smart people land in jail. Around the world, corruption is the crippling albatross around the neck of many of the world’s societies. Endemic corruption is a poison that grips many communities of the world. The root cause is due to the minimal or negligible focus on ethics in homes and schools.
We focused, like a laser beam, very early on ethics. Of course children will push rules and standards of behavior to the edge. While this occurs, we should continue the dialogue that brings out the important issues and current situations related to ethics. With Mark, we played a problem-solving game called scenario decision-making. We would propose various situations or problems and asked Mark to solve them, to provide us with his answer. The problems were designed to test this conceptual thinking ability. For example, we might ask, “What would you do if your friend was found to be using drugs and offered you drugs?”
The answer to this question can be very complicated, especially to questions of turning your friend into the authorities. Invariably, a discussion is provided by this type of question, and through the course of the discussion many salient features of both pro and con arguments will come out. These types of exercises build thinking and communication skills. Some ethical issues have no clear reasons why they are right or wrong decisions. Some require deep thought. But they also may require rapid on-the-fly decision-making. Good judgment in complex situations is a superb quality to have. Good judgment is a clear sign of emerging maturity and mental growth. Good judgment is strengthened by the practice that these case simulations can provide.
All the major religions of the world have value systems. This reality has served a very viable function to societies throughout history. Students should begin early to understand and adhere to their value system throughout life. It is a tool for success with a clear conscience.
Risk taking and decision-making
Critical Issues List
• No risk no gain
• Calculated risk
• Examples of reasonable risk
The old saying goes, “no risk no gain”. There is certainly a germ of truth in this statement. In life, many decisions have to be made and a large proportion of the decisions involved taking some level of risk. With risk comes the possibility of failure. We told Mark that he should risk failure in the decisions that he makes. A little failure here and there is not a bad thing. We had him enter various types of contests including tryouts for the international orchestra, various sports teams, and challenging schools. The lessons learned from taking risk and failing are far more valuable than the temporary setback or bad feelings that they might bring if there is failure.
The preferred type of risk-taking in life is calculated risk. This is a risk that has been thoroughly thought through and even discussed with others to get a variety of opinions. Clearly, this is not a whim or an impulsive decision. After a review where advantages and disadvantages are weighed, the decision is made.
Decisions are not permanently written in concrete either. It is perfectly okay to show flexibility and change. On second thought, a change of mind is perfectly acceptable
Stress academic skills / Challenge yourself through your courses
“One success formula: Bite off more that you can chew, then chew it. If you have the “can do” it will create the “ how to.”
-Anonymous
Critical Issues List
• Take a demanding course-load.
• Improve your writing skills
• Improve your research paper writing skills
• Improve your mathematics skills
• Learn from Bloom’s taxonomy
Take a demanding course-load
In a recent Newsweek article entitled “The Rat Race Begins At 14,” it was pointed out that the pressures are increasing for students to perform at an intense level in high school to gain acceptance in the top colleges. Due to the increasing importance of Advanced Placement exams, SAT tutoring has turned college preparation into a four-year nightmare. Alfie Kohn, the author of the book, No Contest: The Case Against Competition says that “school is no longer about learning . It’s merely about credentialing.” One student countered by suggesting that her parent’s investment of $1500 for a SAT tutor and her getting up at 4:00 a.m. for studying extra time helped to get her in Stanford as an early decision student. Julie Schoknecht, a varsity volleyball player, has no regrets about the hard work. She is happy she made the sacrifice to get in her favorite college.
Students like Julie are increasingly pushing themselves in the context of the increasing competition. At New Trier High, in Illinois, students are not satisfied with the 8:10 a.m. to 3:20 a. m. schedule. Many students opt for extra classes in science and music that begin as early as 7:00 a.m. and many of them study well past midnight. Many of the students say they thrive on the competition. This is a new trend in America. In many foreign countries, tutors, extra school, and intense competition are the norms. In a country like India, the prestigious IIT or Indian Institute of Technology, India’s MIT, gets 200,000 applications of superbly qualified students for only 2000 places. In Turkey, the national exams require students to attend a cram school after the regular school if there is any hope of attending a Turkish University. In Japan, the notorious university examinations are called “examination hell.” Mothers move to distant cities from home to have their sons attend a cram school and prepare for university exams. Some of the mothers even attend the classes with their children. Enormous sums are invested in the preparation of their children. This intensity sometimes takes its toll on some of the kids. They get pushed over the edge by this system. Some of these situations reach unnecessary extremes. Parents have to be cautious and keep a balance.
Some authorities, including college admission people, are worried about the trend. A psychiatrist, Dr. David Fassler says that you do not need a big name college to be a success in life and that many students are devastated when they do not reach their goal. It could be said that preparing for excellence is not inherently a bad thing when a child does not reach his goal. It better prepares him for life. Even if he fails he will be at a high level of achievement and ability and will have momentum for future success. In other words, failure is not necessarily a bad thing. If students do not prepare for the top colleges they are guaranteed not to get in those as well as other less selective schools.
Take the toughest courses offered by your school. In high school students, college admission officers look for evidence of difficult and challenging courses in your program.
Try to take at least one honors course each semester between the ninth and twelfth grade. Honors courses are designated as Advanced Placement (AP) courses or college level courses. The selective college looks to see if a student will seek out a challenge and optimally utilize the resources of a school available to him.
Many students ask, “ would a grade of A in a non honors course be respected more than a grade of B or B- in an honors course? “ There is no firm definitive answer to this question, but admission officers lean toward giving more weight to lower grades in the honors course. The most selective colleges look for A’s in the honors courses. MIT states, “ We encourage you to take the most challenging courses available. Most of our applicants are able to take difficult courses and receive A’s.”
The quality of high schools vary from town to town and from city to city. If a student comes from a weak high school, high grades on an AP test in a subject area commands respect from a selective college. Regarding the question of whether MIT takes into account that some secondary schools offer more rigorous programs and have tougher grading, it states:
“Yes. We know that there are some schools with very strict grading standards in which few students receive As. We also know that there are some schools that offer little in the way of AP or advanced course preparation. The admissions staff is concerned with the extent to which the student has challenged him- or herself in the context of the high school and if he or she is capable of handling the academic rigors of MIT.”
It is possible that grades will suffer in the beginning but experience and exposure will enhance a student’s ability to cope with difficult subject matter. The bottom line at a selective college is to choose students who can handle the severe and heavy work load. It’s unfair to the student to have his hopes and ambition crushed by a tough curriculum at a selective college. The psychological trauma can be great.
The advantage of taking an AP course also relates to the national standards established. For each subject, national guidelines on course content and the national exams, given after the course, insure standardization. Study aids are numerous and extensive; and there are computer programs to assist the student. Even a weak student can improve dramatically with all the assistance available.
The old adage used to describe the best three factors in real estate value are : “location, location , location.” In gaining admission to selective colleges, the three most important criteria are : “ transcript, transcript , transcript.” The quality of the transcript will make or break most applications. Students have to start early in their academic careers and make their transcripts strong and impressive.
An AP course in calculus is a great way to establish a good mathematical foundation in high school. An AP English course can prepare a student to have more effective writing skills. These skills will help to promote high scores on the SAT exams, thus strengthening the student’s profile in several categories.
The grades that are earned in the junior year and the first semester of the senior year carry the greatest weight. The colleges are especially interested in an improving trend in your grade performance.
After AP classes be sure to take the national administered AP test in a given subject. Selective colleges do not require these courses, but a high grade of 4 to 5 is very impressive and boasts the applicant’s strength.
If your school is reluctant to allow a student to enroll in an AP course, parents should visit the school and argue the case for their child. Inactive and passive parents can send the wrong message to the school and hinder the child’s chances. Students from minority backgrounds have faced this problem for years. They have been discouraged from taking AP courses. Those students who insist become more formidable and competitive when the college admission season arrives.
This is the recommended MIT
high school preparation for admission:
One year of high school physics One year of high school chemistry
One year of high school biology
Math through calculus
A foreign language
Four years of English Two years of humanities, social sciences
Improve your reading skills
The importance of reading cannot be over emphasized in the education of a child. Our early strategy was to teach Mark at an early age to read, before he was exposed to formal schooling. This paid off tremendously in his behalf. Once he learned how to read at 3 years of age, he began to explore the wonderful world of books. We made a point to stretch imagination and his thinking by gradually exposing him to more and more complex material. We exposed him to books over his head and beyond his level of comprehension. Through this progressively more complex exposure, Mark’s ability to read grew and his desire to explore flourished.
There are many types of reading that one must consider when developing a reading list. Some delegated reading is the search for specific information. Other reading is exploratory and is a survey of knowledge. There is reading to review material that has been covered in the past. And there is reading which is primarily for enjoyment. The last area of reading is the tying together of material into a synthesis from various manuscripts. A capable and strong reader should be skilled in all these types of reading.
A recent study of the National Education Goals Panel that tracked children to see if they were ready to learn found huge learning gaps. Few parents read to their children, and most do not teach them how to read. The percentage of children 3 years or younger who have their parents reading to them is only 45%. Those in the 3-to-5-year groups the percentage is 56%. This is highly related to the educational level of the parents where 73% of college graduates read to their 3-to-5-year-old children daily. This timetable is very important because the period from birth to age three is critical for hard wiring of a verbal learning capability to the brain. If parents do not pass on these critical skills at this early age, they leave their children struggling in elementary school. These scientific studies are important because they tell us what is important to do and the age periods that are critical to provide the proper teaching and learning environment. The mantra should be, “stimulate, stimulate, stimulate for maximum success.”
When children learn how to read they go through several distinct phases. The first stage is call reading readiness. This is characterized by an intellectual and physical readiness. The eyesight and hearing must be good. This generally begins at three and reaches the optimum time when the child attends first grade.
In the second stage, the child begins to read very simple materials and learns a stable basic vocabulary of about 100 to 500 words.
During the third stage, the vocabulary of the child builds rapidly. Partly during this time, the child begins to use reading as a practical advantage for learning new things about the world.
The fourth stage demonstrates a refinement of all of the skills learned in the previous three stages. The child begins to read effectively and rapidly. This is the time that parents should really capitalize on this new skill and provide ample reading material for the child to consume. This is a particularly important time to go to a library and establish the habit of using library books and reading to the child on a regular daily basis. It is the job of the standard education system to carry the child through the four stages of reading. Parents can initiate this process, well before formal schooling begins so the child can have a head start.
The reading readiness phase is generally the base for reading, through which all children normally passes. It is very important that parents read to their children daily. Establish the habit so that the child will not let you put him to bed without reading to him first.
We read to Mark nearly every night as he grew up. I read difficult books with more advanced ideas in order to begin stretching his thinking. One book I recall that gave him difficulty was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This book while discussing the journeys of a father with his son by motorcycle around the United States also had a philosophical theme that flowed through the book. Mark enjoyed the adventure and descriptive travel parts of the book but found great difficulty in the beginning with the examination of philosophy. This generated considerable discussion about the book and stimulated interest in topics that were beyond his comprehension at the time. I could tell by the gleam in his eyes that the time we set for reading was very special. It certainly inspired me to continue with this habit after seeing the effects on him.
We also began a habit that I acquired from my mother of reading interesting excerpts from articles that I discovered during the course of the day. I would stop wherever we were and begin reading parts of an article. This habit, while sometime annoying to children, was something they grew use to. Invariable, a discussion would emerge out of a point made, and it would give me a chance to play our scenario game of problem-solving.
While riding the car we would reverse the role sometimes. As he grew older, I would have Mark read to me. This, as with other requests, was protested in the beginning but later developed into a habit that Mark felt comfortable with. He would read interesting passages to me, and I would take the time to discuss the ideas presented and to pose problems that I asked Mark to solve. I felt that these early experiences of reading and discussing issues vigorously provided the foundation for Mark to develop strong problem solving skills. This also helped him to develop an intense curiosity about the world and stimulated him to read more.
I could see that Mark was moving through the stages of reading before the elementary level. Although some parents choose to wait for formal schooling to initiate the reading process, we chose to begin early. In anything that we begin early, we always weighed carefully the question of pushing things too fast. In the case of reading, we thought that if he enjoyed the stimulation and the discussion in the process, why not let him continue so that he would indeed be stimulated and happy.
Key to our efforts in teaching him how to read was the use of a phonics approach to the process. We found an excellent phonics book that became invaluable in our teaching game. Once the process began we found Mark rapidly progressing through the third stage characterized by a rapid increase in vocabulary. Mark began to see now how this gain could expand his universe. Everyday the progress encouraged us, as parents, to continue along our chosen pathway. We knew that the efforts we used to stimulate him intellectually were paying off huge dividends in progress, enthusiasm, and wonder.
By the time he blossomed in the Montessori program, we saw him enter the fourth stage of reading. We saw refinement of his skills and the implementation of this new possibility in a wide variety of ways. As we drove along the roads and streets, Mark would read to us the signs that he understood. He was beginning to understand the world around him.
In retrospect, I see this period of him learning to read, prior to any formal schooling, as having been a key foundation that was established. The bricks of that foundation were solid, and they prepared him to build a wonderful house of intellectual achievement in the future.
Improve your Writing Skills
Critical Issues List
The road toward excellent writing
• How often do you have your child writ?
• What kind of writings do they do?
• How much first draft writing do they do?
• Let them use log books to track their writing? What kind of responses are they getting and making toward their writings?
• What is your child being taught about writing in school?
In writing across the curriculum, according to Dr. Margaret Healy from the University of California at Berkeley, there is a link between language and learning. We, as parents, must take advantage of this link when promoting learning and language with our children. Language is a medium of learning. Very few parents put special emphasis on language in teaching their children. In a book called Language and Learning by James Britain he said, “language is the exposed edge of thought.” We can use writing to help our children think and learn. The writer that looks inward is the writer that organizes. I know what I’m thinking about when I see what I have written. Writing is an aid to learning. How does writing help you learn? Writing proves that you have learned something, especially when you have explained it in a clear, simple, and precise way.
Generative writing is a method to teach our children to write. You begin to write and in the course of writing you find out whether you understand something. This writing is tentative, the purpose is discovery and it links new information with old information. Does this snowball of learning get large? No. It stays the same size but it is continuously reorganized. Children must constantly reorganize their understanding. We use language to represent the world. This is our world. We must use language in a productive way.
Many people use the dump truck theory of writing-information is taken from some place and dumped to another. This is different from creative writing where the creative process blossoms. We should not put .too much emphasis on neatness when teaching our children to write. We should teach them words and later sentences and still later paragraphs, which ultimately are put together to become compositions.
It is best to begin writing with an idea. Tell your child to start with wanting to say something. Delay emphasis on corrections and perfection. Do not have your child generate words on paper and correct them right away. Let him do what professional writers do and postpone corrections.
One strategy suggested by James Wilder is to read to your children for six months before letting them write. This reading should be replete with a wide variety of materials and writings. Scientific writing, fiction, nonfiction, as well as textbook presentations should be read to the child.
The writing process is composed of pre-writing, drafting, responding, revising, rewriting, editing, reading, evaluation, and publishing. Arthur Applebee suggests that only two stages are involved in the writing process. Those stages are reading and evaluation. There’s generally no emphasis on pre-writing or drafting. That is ironic because pre-writing is the most important stage of writing. The items critical to rewriting are discussion of a topic with others, reading about the topic, listening to someone talk about the topic, and brainstorming with yourself or with others on the question. Teach your child how to find something to write about. Show him the power of the draft. A very good exercise is to write for three minutes without thinking about anything in particular. Should you think before you write? The answer is no! The correct order is for you to write before you think.
When in doubt, begin to write. It is not the quality of what to write, the fact that you write is most important. It should be stressed that the draft is very important to writing. Several drafts will be important before you reach your final product. Writing should be a journey of discovery, not just a demonstration of your thinking.
The process of responding to a piece of writing is a valuable skill to learn. The question to ask is “how does this sound?” It is important that the reader learns to build an internal response system. This response system should be directed to the writer’s own writing and to the writing of others. In an initial response it should be non-evaluative. For a draft, always ask questions. Questions force writers to think and respond.
How do you teach the concept of revision? Revision is the same as re-seeing, re-thinking, and re-formulation. There should be a re-shaping of the writing and putting emphasis on re-constructing the original idea. The process of revision is similar to learning at a more penetrating level. The earliest stages of writing are the most important. Revision is the process of reaching completion and possible publication. Editors and proofreaders are experts at revision. Many children see this as the drudgery of writing but it is critical to teach the joy in thinking about learning at a more penetrating level and getting the sentence, the paragraph, and the total composition correct.
The process of evaluation is to teach the children how to critically look at their own work. Let the master question be, “What did I attempt to do in this paper?” Ask a series of other good questions that penetrate for sharper meaning. Ask them the question, “What could you do with this paper if you had another day?” An example of a critique is, “There are not enough examples to illustrate your key points.” Also, “There is no valid conclusion and summary.” After the child responds to these questions, tell him, “I have a surprise, you have another day.”
It is ironic that students are asked to report conclusions in the writings but not to do the kind of writing to help them arrive at those excellent conclusions.
A big problem with writing, especially for the beginning writer, is that the writing is too superficial. The writing reveals nothing to the reader about what’s on the writer’s mind. There’s generally an absence of thoughts presented. The senior year is the year of many college essays. Admission offices penetrate in their evaluation of the writing and find out that there’s no thought behind it. This group holds in many cases an otherwise good application. There are specific activities that we can help our children arrive at conclusions and write prose that demonstrates a depth of thought.
Parents should be encouraged to initiate learning logs. This is the process of recording what the child thinks. Take a topic such as dinosaurs or African mammals, think about it and then write what you think.
While you, as a parent, are reading things around the kitchen table, in the car, or in the family room, ask what your children think about this particular writing. Ask what are the good and weak qualities of the writing. This can help to promote a constant evaluation of writing on the part of the child and will stimulate him to do better writing himself. Ask what he thinks of particular books. And keep track of the books he is reading in order to take every opportunity to discuss them and their contents. A healthy debate of the ideas found in the books read will stimulate a finer appreciation of good writing in others and stimulate good writing by the child. Keep track of old drafts for a comparison between early drafts and the final product. This shows the rapid improvement that can be made through the drafting process.
Encourage publication when your child writes something that shows great possibilities. Even weak writing that’s published can lead to much better writing and future publishing dates. I encouraged publication for Mark and he published a book while he was in junior high. This book was mainly graphical, but the sense of accomplishment from this project has stayed with him to this day.
Develop research paper writing skills
Critical Issues List
How to do a research paper?
• List subjects of interest
• Choose one for your paper
• Limit the topic
• Ask questions
The first task for a research paper is to do some reading. This reading should take place over several days. Use several references. The second task is to list the questions that you have about the topic. The parents should sign off on the topics that are finally chosen.
If the topic, such as African civilizations, is chosen the following questions could be used,” What is the nature of the various civilizations and cultures? Where was this culture and when was this culture? How do you describe the stages of this culture? For the artist in Africa, what was the media of choice?”
Another topic could be the linguistic connection of the people of Oceania and pre-Columbian America to the. The questions could include, “What is the earliest known language of Oceania? Where was this language derived? When did writing as a language began? What is the earliest evidence to indicate the geographic spread of language? How does the local language absorb words of an imported language?” The next event is to narrow the topic with a question like, “What was the connection between the language of Oceania and Early American Indian languages.”
The next process is to revise the topic and questions. This is the single most important task. Have your child get a separate piece of paper for each question. At the top of the paper write one question. From now on in the research, only information on that question can be put on that paper.
Note sheets should be established. When collecting information, it is very important to distinguish between paraphrasing and plagiarism. Encyclopedias may not answer your questions directly. It is less necessary to go through the text of the articles and pick out the information related to your questions.
Make note sheets. This is a very important step. The child should learn the habit of taking good notes from materials he read because this will serve him well in future academic pursuits.
The writer must understand and avoid plagiarism. In order to do this, the child must distinguish between the summary, a paraphrase, and a direct quote. Give him one hour to do this exercise. But every piece of information that is written down must be identified in this manner. Summary should be followed by an “s,” paraphrase should be followed by a “p,” and a direct quote should be followed by the letters “dq.” If your child hasn’t done this, do not accept the note sheets.
The next step is to do research for a couple of weeks. Try to have five to ten minutes discussion everyday on the current topic. Take a notebook and jot down the points made in each discussion.
It is now time to write the report. Have the child put the note pages on a big table, and let him play around with the order. Develop an order which shows the introduction first, the body of the paper, and conclusions. Have your child take five minutes to write what was the most surprising thing about this topic. This can then be use for introduction of the topic and for summarizing the report.
The following approach is good writing technique to introduce your audience before you write. Imagine that there is someone who doesn’t know anything about the topic. Putting that someone in mind helps to sharpen your understanding and clarify the expression of ideas.
Do activities with your children, like take a trip to the library to heighten interest in research. Watch educational videos, film strips, tapes, and listen to audio records.
Delay your thesis definition to the latest possible time in the writing process. Doing this early is generally too confining and narrows the scope of the writer. Have him read out loud the draft that he creates to see how it sounds. Mark experienced this system of writing as extra home work while studying in junior high.
Improve your mathematics skills
Mathematics has been considered by many to be the queen of the sciences. It is a language of logic that is simultaneously a product of thought and an instrument of thought. Math skills can carry over into many areas of academic pursuit. The sheer logic of it strengthens the mind’s capacity to think and solve problems. Math was one of the early challenges we placed before Mark at an early age. We began with using computer games to stimulate his math interests. We rewarded his successes with little prizes. This helped to consolidate his mathematical way of thinking. As a parent, I felt that getting Mark ahead in math would serve several purposes. Math skills reflect greater thinking skills. Mathematics is objective and success with it is immediately understood. Confidence is built up quick. Test taking skills are enhanced because all the important standardized tests have major math sections.
Our routine focused on helping Mark with the basic computational skills. One of his teachers established a program where the children were timed for completion of a sheet of math problems. The objective was to get everything correct in 1 minute. Mark’s name was place on the bulletin board for having one of best records for these exercises. . We set up pages of addition and subtraction problems. We timed him for one minute on each page. As he gained perfect marks on the pages, we made the problems progressively more difficult. I typed up the multiplication tables and printed out all the numbers except the answers. He then worked on these until he had great proficiency in the all the basic operations.
Around the seventh grade, we enrolled him briefly in a Kumon math program for a correspondence course. Although he worked with this program for only 5 months, we adapted several of their methods for Mark’s benefit for the next few years. The Kumon math program was developed in 1954 by Mr. Toru Kumon. He developed this method while helping his own son gain proficiency in math. The level of math ranges from simple line drawing to University level mathematics. Students do repetitive worksheets on a daily basis until they reach 100% proficiency in a particular topic. There are well over 2 million children using this program around the world today. Several school districts in America have adopted this program as their choice for their mathematics program. While taking the program they generally get greatly improved grades in their math and in other courses because their skills improve and their attitude toward learning gets healthier. The essence of the program is to build the confidence of the child and establish a solid mathematical ability. The program builds success through:
1. The individual program:
The program develops a child not a class. The speed of progress is determined only by the child’s rate of growth and the lessons are tailored for the individual.
2. Easy starting point:
Students are given a diagnostic test at the beginning. They begin at a level where they can be consistently proficient at 100%.
3. Developing good study habits:
Students are asked to set aside 10-to-30 minutes per day for the exercises of problem solving. They develop a joy for learning and become independent in their study. Habits are formed and the student sets more and more challenging goals.
4. Repetition of the work:
This is the key to the success of the program. Students have to repeat worksheets until they get 100% of the problems correct. The succeeding levels become easier because the students progress on the basis of strength.
5. Self-Learning:
Students are taught to think and learn for themselves. There is minimal teacher intervention. The worksheets become the teacher. The student reads the problem and answers the questions alone. As the student reaches new material, he has the skill to conquer the unknown.
6. Good foundation for high school and college math:
The foundation is established for higher math. Students usually advance ahead of their grade level and begin high school math in primary school. By the time they reach high school, they are very familiar with the material.
The students usually go to a special center after regular school and pick up their worksheets. Students generally do 4 to 7 worksheets per day depending on the student’s ability. Students are expected to get 100% correct and make corrections for all mistakes. They fill in scoring sheets which are reviewed by a supervisor.
We adopted some of these methods for Mark as he advanced in math. We acquired numerous workbooks on various levels of math. Mark always had two tracks of math work operating concurrently in his schedule. One track for regular school and another track for home exercises patterned after the Kumon method.
The other major push for math excellence occurred when Mark began preparing and taking the SAT in the seventh grade.
Learn from Bloom’s taxonomy
The science of learning has been explained and classified by Bloom. Bloom’s taxonomy is a classification system for learning.
The following are the 6 levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.
• 1 .Factual knowledge is the lowest level of learning.
• 2. Comprehension is the ability to grasp the meaning of material.
• 3. Application refers to the ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations.
• 4. Analysis is the ability to breakdown material into its component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood.
• 5. Synthesis refers to the ability to put parts together to form a new whole.
• 6. Evaluation is concerned with the ability to judge the value of material for a given purpose.
In Bloom’s taxonomy 30 percent is fact, 30 percent is comprehension, 30 percent is application, and 10 percent is higher order thinking skill. Research indicates that many students focus 97 percent of the time on fact memorization. We need to spend more time on higher order thinking skills which involve analytical skills. Nearly 85 percent of facts are forgotten within three months. Learning has to go beyond mere facts. We need to create intellectual ambiguity because this stretches the child. Inform the child that not all problems have solutions — we sometimes need compromises. We should encourage a bright child to give commitment to complete a project, particularly an ambiguous, challenging problem.
Most textbooks are written in Bloom’s taxonomy level one. “We must guide our craft by the stars and not by the light of the passing ship,” Bradley said. We have to convert Bloom’s taxonomy level one into all of Bloom’s taxonomy. We have to teach tolerance for ambiguity. When your child answers a question, the defense of the answer is more important than whether the answer is correct or not.
Learn test-taking skills
“ What shall we do when hope is gone?” The words leapt out like a leaping sword. ‘ Sail on! Sail! Sail! And on!”
-Anonymous
“ If I hear, I forget; if I see, I remember; if I do , I make it my own.”
-Chinese saying
Start early
Mark began taking the Stanford Early School Achievement test in first grade. In the skills analysis section, Mark’s achievements in sounds and letters were in the intermediate percentiles; his achievements in word reading was in the 90 plus percentile; incentives reading was in the 95 percentile; listening was in the 70 percentile; mathematics was in the 95 percentile; environment was in the 95 percentile; reading was in the 90 percentile; and total reading was in the 90 plus percentile. He was rated above average in 15 skill categories. He improved every year he took this test. And by the third grade, this confidence in skill in test taking had reached the level where he was above average in all the test areas. In six of the categories he was in the 99th percentile. We used these tests to judge Mark’s progress in the International School. This was possible because children across America take this test and the scores achieved are always comparable to that of students in the United States. We judged the quality of his education by the high scores that Mark consistently received on these tests, from first grade throughout his elementary school years.
Talented and gifted programs and the SAT-I
Try progressively more difficult tests
There are several programs in United States that have been designed to tap talented youth. The most famous of the programs and one of the pioneers is the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) program at Johns Hopkins University. In 1971, Dr. Julian Stanley founded a study of mathematically precocious youth. This program has grown into a very expansive program covering many disciplines for youth all over the world. The key program is called Talent Search: Seventh Grade Academic Programs. This program was started in 1980. It requires students in the seventh grade to take the SAT and qualify with a score of at least 500 on the math and at least 930 for the verbal and math combined. They now also have talent searches of the fifth and six grades and also there’s a program for those in grades three through seven.
The main program has identified more than 425,000 students. In 1994 over 38,000 seventh grade students took the SAT exam. The students who are accepted into the program participate in research and the results add to our understanding of cognitive development and high-level achievement. The classes are usually designed to provide the total immersion experience in one subject. For example those taking calculus at the seventh grade level will finish the course in three weeks. They generally spend eight hours per day studying the subject. It is very intense but the outcome is very rewarding for the students.
The students benefit in many ways in the program. They benefit from engaging and rigorous academic work along with a very talented peer group. This peer group has a tremendous positive impact on the students. They learn what their strengths and weaknesses are in a given subject area. They also learn better and effective discipline and study habits. The students are generally in class for five hours per day, and after class they have regular study hours established.
A similar program was established at Northwestern University in 1982. They have an annual academic talent search across the country. The center works with educators and school districts to develop services for gifted students. They provide workshops and access to resources for parents and students. The summer program is for students to develop as talented adolescents. The students study with strong teachers and have an intellectual interaction with a peer group that is the extraordinary. They take one intensive fast pace course during the three-week period. Classes meet for five hours per day for five days a week and extensive homework is required for many courses. In the math classes, exams are given at the end of the chapter. Students are not allowed to proceed until they pass satisfactorily the exams on each topic. It is a grueling and intensive experience. For the mathematics program for the seventh grade, a SAT-I score of 520 is required on the math and 920 on the math and verbal combined.
The benefits of the Northwestern program is similar to those of the students of the Johns Hopkins program. Mark was accepted in the Northwestern program but he did not attend because he decided to go to the Philips Exeter summer program that summer. His brother Geoffrey later attended that program with great success. How did they prepare for acceptance in this program?
Once we heard about the program, I showed Mark brochures and information. We discussed the programs, their goals, and objectives. I later asked whether he would be interested in trying to qualify for this program. He said he wanted to think about it. He took the brochures and read them on his own without pressure from his parents. He later came back to tell us he would like to give it a try. So we began the odyssey of intensive preparation.
The Sat-I
The testing is a very important part of the application process. This is unfortunate because there are scholars who think that the test does not measure unbiased intelligence or potential. Colleges, however, make judgments about students based on this test and it’s important to do well. How do you prepare for the test? It is recommended that students begin taking the SAT 1 when they’re in the seventh grade. Why take the test this early? The most important reason for taking the test early is to establish a high standard in the mind of the student. The test is clearly over his head at that age but it stretches his thinking and lets him know what the test is all about. It doesn’t matter whether the score is in the low 300’s or middle 400’s; the important thing is for the student to begin to realize the challenges ahead in academic life. Therefore, if the student is really prepared for this exam and scored above 500 in the math and verbal sections, he can qualify for several unique summer programs for high-school students at the seventh grade level in various colleges. Students from around the country can participate in these programs after reaching cut-off scores in the mid-500’s.
The results of the math and verbal sections can point out areas of weakness. They can generate a diagnosis that tells a student the areas where he has strengths and the areas where he has weaknesses. It can also stimulate a wider reading interest which is the best preparation in the long run for SAT testing. Mark was very enthusiastic about taking his first test. All the other students were much older. He sat with them for the full three hours, working hard on all the questions that he knew and skipping those he did not. When he got his results back, he was not quite disappointed but clearly happy that he had taken the test. He did not qualify for the Center for Talent Development Program that time, but he was well on his way because he was prepared and looked forward to taking the exam again.
When Mark began taking the SAT in the sixth grade, the score barely reached 400 in the verbal and math portions. In spite of that apparent failure, taking the exam was really a big success. He had the chance to sit in the exam hall with older students, he had the chance to exercise his mental capacities with difficult material, and he gained the confidence of having to sit through the exam the first time. On subsequent occasions, this performance rapidly improved. We worked with a math tutor to help him prepare for the test. This proved to be invaluable because the math teacher demonstrated many shortcuts and went through many problems on the sample test to familiarize Mark with all of the major types of problems. Significant portions of the sample test were related to subjects he had not taken before, and he had to become familiar with the subjects in order to reasonably manage the test. Although his results were very low in the beginning, Mark was happy to get these results.
After two years and a half years of taking this test on a periodic basis, improvement was beginning to show. This improvement in our view was more rapid than one might expect. This proved in Mark’s mind that he was doing better on a difficult assignment, and he had a sense of clearly doing a good job. This was, of course, one of the most important reason for taking the exam early in the first place.
By the time he reached the eighth grade, he scored over 550 on the math and a collective 930 on the math and verbal. This qualified him for the Center for Talent Development program at Northwestern University. When that occurred, he saw the impact of long, hard work which resulted in this achievement. His math teacher, was notably proud and began telling Mark that he would later qualify for MIT.
Admission Principles
“ Writing down your six must urgent tasks for tomorrow develops judgment, memory, imagination, and efficiency.”
“ There’s a proper place for everyone. But it won’t search for us. We must search for it.”
“Enthusiasm is the invisible magnet that draws others to our view.”
-Anonymous
This is a quote from MIT’s viewbook.
“What does it take to get into MIT?”
“MIT’s admissions decisions are based on evaluations of applications by members of the admission staff, faculty members, and an admissions committee. Evaluations focus on candidates’ grades, the quality of their academic program, standardized test scores, personal accomplishments, and such characteristics as creativity, leadership, and love of learning.”
Critical Issues List
There are several important issues that must be addressed in the college application process.
• Testing
• The application
• Recommendations
• Transcript grades
• Interview
• Supplemental materials
• Financial aid
• Athletes and recruitment
Establish an admissions calendar
A student should carefully prepare a calendar that will cover the months of his junior and senior year during the college admission’s process. This calendar should establish all the deadlines for critical events during this period. When the child has prepared himself over the years for the grueling test of college admissions, it is important to follow through at this level with great care. Why prepare all of the years before and put forth so much effort in so many areas of endeavor and blow it with the application process? The application should be filled out with great care. All parts should be completed neatly and preferably typed. There are new computer programs available that permit a student to fill the application completely by computer. Also many colleges use the common application which permits a student to fill out one application for numerous colleges. Read all the instructions very carefully and follow them to the letter. Make sure all deadlines are met. It is suggested that you make a copy of all applications and practice filling them out before your final draft. Make corrections of the applications that you fill out and create a separate file folder for each school.
Admission’s Calendar
Elementary School
Develop the habits necessary for excellence
Learn to enjoy school
Learn how to study and achieve high grades
Start extracurricular activities and sports you enjoy
Middle School
Begin to visit colleges
Try to qualify for talented and gifted programs (take SAT-I)
Maintain a strong transcript
High School
Ninth grade
Plan your courses for the entire 4 years
Develop strong extracurricular interest
Strive for strong grades
Tenth grade
Continue taking the SAT-I test
Strengthen commitment to various extracurricular
Concentrate on one are two sports
Take challenging courses (AP when possible) and get excellent grades
Eleventh grade
Take PSAT
Establish rapport with your college counselor and develop a list of colleges
Take SAT-I
Continue with challenging courses (AP when possible)and excellent grades
Excel in your extracurricular activities ( have fun)
Summer between Junior and Senior year
Visit colleges on your list
Begin your college applications and the essays
Senior Year
Prepare your applications meticulously
Take the SAT-I test again if necessary
Take honors or AP courses where possible
Get applications in mail for Early Decision or Regular pool
Make decision on acceptances
Prepare far ahead for each requirement
Stanford University’s criteria for admission as stated in their publications.
“The primary criterion for admission is academic excellence, and the most important single credential is the transcript. There are no minimum figures set for grade point average, test scores, or rank in class, nor are there specific high school course requirements for entrance to Stanford. We do, however, require evidence of successful completion of an accredited secondary school program, and we look for those students who have selected as rigorous an academic program as possible, and who have achieved distinction in a range of academic courses. Our ablest candidates have mostly “A”s in their courses, but we do find that some students with lower grade averages may show more real promise for strong college-level course work than some students with higher averages. We find the same may apply with regard to test scores-very high scores, though they may in many cases confirm scholastic promise, do not guarantee admission to Stanford. It is always to an applicant’s benefit to have taken the most demanding courses available in high school. A strong performance in accelerated, honors, or Advanced Placement classes indicates a student’s ability and desire to meet academic challenges.”
The following is recommended as basic preparation for study at Princeton:
• – four years of English (including continued practice in writing)
• – four years of mathematics
• – four years of one foreign language
• – at least two years of laboratory science
• – at least two years of history (including that of a country or an area outside the United States)
• – some study of art, music, and, if possible, a second foreign language
Focus on selective colleges
Critical Issues List
Admission groups
• Intellects
• Special talent
• Family legacy group
• Social conscience group
• Well-rounded student
It is important for candidates to understand that colleges cannot look at the entire class as one group to take their selections for the upcoming class. The colleges admissions committees divide the class into several groups to make the selections. Applicants who fall within various categories are generally competing among themselves, and not with other members of the class. Understanding this concept helps candidates prepare for the grueling admission process by positioning themselves for being competitive in one or more of these special groups. One of the best categorization rendered is one developed by Richard Moll, a former admissions officer at several colleges.
This first group are the intellects. The most selective colleges want a group of academically oriented students who have distinguished themselves in various academic fields. These are students who have taken the top course loads and have produced stellar performances in all the academic pursuits. They are the academic jocks, if you will. Furthermore, they have also performed in the upper one percent of the United States in testing, scoring 1550’s on the SAT-I and the 750’s on the SAT II exams. They bring a level of academic capabilities that challenge the teachers and raises the level of the entire institution. They are very important for the reputation of the college as an academic powerhouse and they liven the discussions in the classroom. If you have excelled academically and can perform at these levels, you have a very high percentage chance of being admitted to the most selective colleges. In MIT, the Ivy League, and the other top schools, this is only 1/4 or 1/5 of the admitted class. Most applicants are competing against applicants in other pools, rather than this intellectual strong group. And it is probably a mistake for a student to try to position himself in the intellect group when it is clear early in his academic career that this group will be difficult to reach. It is probably more strategically viable to aim for one of the other categories.
The second category is a special talent category. This applicant pool include those who have shown dedication, commitment, and high achievement in a given area of activity. This could be in the arts which would include music, painting, photography, and writing. This could also be sports and include all the major athletic areas. Some sports will have more weight than others, because of the general popularity as well as alumni interest. In the Northeast, for example, ice hockey is a very popular sport, and hockey players will do well in select colleges if they have basic academic achievement and high levels of skill in the sports. In the most selective colleges, it is very important to understand that there is a good level of academic ability, as demonstrated by your transcript grades. Your testing scores will be judged with a minimum cutoffs for the top schools. Therefore, if you are above this level and show special skills in these sports, your competitiveness is increased. The special talent category is weighted in favor of athletes. If you are a record holder in the 50-m freestyle in swimming, an all-state quarterback in football, an all-American point guard in basketball, or a strong goalie in soccer or hockey, you have a tremendous leverage in the admissions process. Back in the 1950’s-after Harvard lost to Yale by over 50 points in football, president Nathan Pusey told one of the admission committee members to make sure that Harvard recruited some strong football players and to not let the school lose by such a large margin again. MIT and Cal Tech are two highly selective colleges that have no sports recruiting. They admit a class and find out later who can play sports. However, having a special talent in sports and music will be helpful in the overall appraisal of you as a candidate, and gives the admission committee a look at a broader developed human being.
The third category is the family legacy group. This pool of applicants are children of alumni of the various selective colleges. All selective colleges need alumni contributions for the strength of their financial support. As a trade off to the former graduates of the school and in exchange for their support as a group, the admission committee gives their children an edge in the admissions process. This is not a guarantee of admissions to weak students, but it will give the nod to a student who is equally qualified with another student who does not have a parent connection. Some schools will admit legacy cases at twice the level for normal applicants. Some classes will be composed of 15 to 20 percent of children of alumni. These legacy candidates are generally competing against those who are also legacy.
The fourth category is the social conscience group. This group consists of ethnic minorities, especially those that are under-represented at the top schools. In response to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, many colleges changed their admissions requirements so that minority students who were underrepresented in the past had a better chance of being admitted. This was deemed important for the future of society and to create more diversity in the classroom. It was strongly felt that learning is more dynamic and more meaningful when there are diverse views in the class when opinions are expressed. Contemporary scholars have deemed that homogeneous learning with people of the same background as somewhat deficient. Although all applicants are competing with the entire applicant pool, there is greater competition within pools. Therefore, African-Americans, are primarily competing against other African-Americans for entry. The original objective of this goal was, to have represented in each class, the percentage of a group that roughly equates to that in the general population. This has been achieved by only a few schools, but has come closer at Stanford and University of Virginia. If a school cannot attract enough applicants in a particular ethnic group, the school is inclined to recruit heavily in order to diversify the student body. Hispanics and native- Americans along with African-Americans are considered under-represented minorities and they are especially recruited. Harvard sends out letters to all African-American students who score high on the PSAT exam. This is a category similar to the legacy group, that you cannot position yourself for but are merely in this group by virtue of birth.
The fifth category is the well-rounded student group. Because the vast majority of the applicant pool fall into this category, it