What High Schools Don't Tell You: 300+ Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
• Published by: Hudson Street Press July 19, 2007
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1594630372
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1594630378
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

From Booklist
Wissner-Gross, author of What Colleges Don't Tell You (2006), follows up with a book aimed at the grade-school years, well before the college search starts. She draws on interviews with teachers, college admissions officers, and parents of nationally recognized high-school students to offer practical advice on how parents can begin in the eighth grade to prepare their children for a high-school career that will lead to admission into the best colleges. Part 1 focuses on the college admissions process and urges parents and students to develop a game plan, including making strategic use of summers and designing strong four-year academic programs to boost the chances of admission into the most desirable colleges and universities. Part 2 focuses on the best opportunities for children in a variety of areas, including math, science, the arts, the humanities, journalism, business, and government. Wissner-Gross offers more than 300 suggestions to best position students for college admissions. A detailed appendix offers possible paths based on a child's area of interest or passion. Parents will find this an enormously helpful resource. Bush, Vanessa

Book Description
From the author of What Colleges Don't Tell You, more than 300 secrets for raising the kid colleges will compete to accept

The headlines prove it: Competition for admission to America's top colleges is more cutthroat than ever. Gone are the days when parents could afford to let high school guidance counselors handle the admissions process alone-gone, also, are the days when a student could wait until senior year to prepare for it. As Elizabeth Wissner-Gross, a highly successful educational strategist, knows from working for over a decade with hundreds of middle- and high school students and their parents, if you want to raise a kid colleges will compete for, you must act, early and aggressively, as opportunity scout, coach, tutor, manager, and publicist-or be willing to watch that acceptance letter go to someone whose parents did.

What High Schools Don't Tell You reveals 300+ strategies to help parents stack the admissions deck in their kid's favor, gleaned from Wissner-Gross's expertise and from interviews with parents of outstandingly high achievers-strategies that most high school guidance counselors, principals, and teachers simply don't know to share. From identifying exactly which academic credentials will wow an admissions committee to which summer programs and extra-curriculars can turn an ordinary applicant into a must-have, What High Schools Don't Tell You demonstrates how hands-on parental involvement early in a child's high school career is essential to achieving college admissions success.

Reader Reviews
First, you have to realize the truth. It isn't that hard to get into a college or university in general. What is perhaps hard is to get into a specific college or university, or to be eligible for specific academic scholarships or fellowships. Second, some, but not all, of the suggestions made by author Elizabeth Wissner-Gross require money, and lots of it. Just keep this in mind when you read about the favored summer camps she recommends. Third, you've probably heard or read of the "hovering parent" syndrome. This book, What High Schools Don't Tell You: 300+ Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year, was written with them in mind. Okay, having said those things, there are some good ideas here. Let me summarize a bunch of them. - be very good at something - don't wait until your junior or senior year to develop your resume or experiences - don't waste your summers - develop a plan, and follow the plan There you go! About 200 of these secrets fall in these categories. I was irritated or disappointed with three themes in the book. - intellectual development was key for Wissner-Gross. That's not a bad goal. However, our children are, quite frankly, falling apart. Obesity rates are sky-rocketing, along with early adult-onset diabetes, and the lack of knowledge or skills in life sports such as tennis, basketball, and swimming are deplorable. Sending kids to college without the ability to take care of their bodies and socialize with team or intramural sports is a really bad thing, and I guarantee you, it is not the responsibility of the faculty at college to teach your son or daughter to avoid binge drinking, proper eating, and good exercise strategies. Promote intellectual development while limiting these areas at your child's peril. There is a cost associated with encouraging engineering camp while discouraging soccer camp. - Life is not over if you don't get into Yale or Williams. Be careful of the messages you send. Being very good in what you do, wherever you go, is the key for admission to prestigious graduate and professional schools, and these graduate programs are key determinants of future success. - Community service. Here's where I really part company with Wissner-Gross: "Your child should avoid volunteer experiences where intellectual growth is not likely to occur or where there are no new skills to gain" (Secret 280, p. 227). "... I want to emphasize that a student who sticks with a boring task... does not impress colleges" (Secret 281, p. 227). She does note that the child should seek insight or improvement. Wissner-Gross states "The major rewards of community service tend to be learning, enrichment, innovating, the satisfaction of helping others, supporting a cause you believe in, and enjoyment..." BUT, she continues (p. 229) stating "The Community Service Requirement. Does every child need to do community service? It's not a bad idea if you want your child to be a caring adult. However, parents need to think carefully about... what constitutes service. Conducting science research to end cancer is community service enough..." What? I guarantee you, NO high school student is "Conducting science research to end cancer." And community service involves service to the community first. Here, it is being confused with volunteerism. When students are interviewed, this really comes out. If your program doesn't care, that's their problem. If the program you desire does care, then that is your problem. Community service involves making a connection to the community, and your reflection on this experience in this regard is essential. Many, many students call these experiences transformational. It's what fuels their passion in their college interviews, in their courses, and in what they get involved in during college. And then there is the statement, "Does every child need to do community service? It's not a bad idea if you want your child to be a caring adult." And there are parents who DON'T want their children to be caring adults? For humanity's sake, I hope these parents are in the extreme minority. So Elizabeth Wissner-Gross says that intellectual development is essential (how can I disagree?), development of connectiveness with the community is not a bad idea if you want your child to be a caring adult (this bothers me a lot), and don't worry, be happy about your child's physical development (this is the omission that will haunt a person's health through decades... but hey!). So whether you have MIT or Cal Tech, Smith or Randolph-Macon Woman's College, or Stanford or the University of Virginia in mind, be good at many things, be really good at something; be broad in your education while also being deep; be concerned about your community and your body; and be oh so honest about who you are and who you want to be. And don't forget to let your kid play during the summer as well. Comment | | (Report this)