Education & Success Archives

Up Series – success and satisfaction in life

30 March, 2015 by ES Ivy

Along with my current reading list, I also mentioned that I’ve been watching the Up Series documentaries. The Up documentaries have been a continuing project over the last fifty years, following the lives of 14 children. It was actually Tim who first found this series, and realized that it might have connections to everything I’d been reading about.

The series begins with a short film, 7 Up, that was actually meant to be a stand alone documentary showing how a child’s future in Britain was already limited by the age they were 7, simply by the class they were born into. (And yes, I realize I used “they” where I should have used “he,” but I really dislike using only the masculine form in such cases, and he/she is so awkward.) In this first film, it’s rather striking to see how the more affluent children have a pretty good idea of how their life will be charted out, rattling off a long stream of schools they plan to progress through….

Books for thought on Education and Purpose

26 March, 2015 by ES Ivy

We took our kids – with our main focus being our son, who’s a high school junior – to visit two private universities in our state over spring break. While our son is very focused on a major in computer science, I took our daughters to see the fine arts department at one school, and visited with women who are a professor of interior design, a biochemist, and a chemical engineer/turned industrial engineer/turned computer science lecturer/women in engineering adviser, at another.

Meanwhile I’ve been reading, a lot….

Cinderella and Inside Out – Lessons in Kids’ Movies

25 March, 2015 by ES Ivy

Are you like me and you haven’t seen the new Disney Cinderella movie yet?

Maybe you’re worried about showing your young daughter an out-dated fairy tale where a young maiden is distress is saved by a charming prince who swoops in and saves the day? Well the press information that Disney has released suggests that they really tried to do otherwise. Instead, they tried to produce a film that shows that “kindness can be a type of super power.”…

To give, or not to give homework? That is the question

24 March, 2015 by ES Ivy

A friend forwarded an article to me recently with the comment “I don’t agree with this, but you might find it interesting.”

I love having friends who disagree with me. I think it’s important, to constantly challenge my own decisions. It helps to surround myself with thoughtful people who are willing to discuss the pros and cons of a different issue, and the discussion is most informative when you think you fall on different sides of an argument. Sometimes a friend convinces me to change my mind. Sometimes I convince them. Most of the time we agree to disagree, but I think everything lives on in our subconscious and influences us later. What’s important, is that it allows each of us to thoughtfully consider and reevaluate our position.

In this case, the question happens to be homework. To give, or not to give homework. That is the question….

What PSAT score is good enough to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship?

15 January, 2015 by ES Ivy

Is my PSAT score good enough to qualify for National Merit scholarship? What score is needed to qualify for a National Merit Scholarship? That information isn’t easy to find, even on the internet. All the PSAT scores should all be out by now (schools receive the scores and decide when to distribute them) and a lot of students are asking that question. Even if it’s not their Junior year, some kids (or their parents) are looking at their freshman or sophomore scores and wondering if they have a shot at National Merit their Junior year….

Do PSAT scores and National Merit numbers mean anything?

3 December, 2014 by ES Ivy

Many students and parents right now are nervously awaiting the announcement of PSAT scores, the scores that will be used to determine qualification for National Merit Semi-finalists which will give them a chance at getting a National Merit Scholarship. How nervous? Really nervous. Just take a look over at the College Confidential forums. Even sophomores, who can’t qualify until next year, are nervous.

Of course, once the scores come out, everyone will still have to await the announcement of the cut-off scores for National Merit qualification. As we wait on those announcements, I’ve been thinking lately about what the number of National Merit Scholars mean s about the effectiveness of any one particular high school. Can you use the number of National Merit Scholars as a criteria for choosing a good high school?…

SAT – 6 Best Tools to Improve your SAT Scores without a Private Tutor

16 October, 2014 by ES Ivy

If you’re like a lot of high school students (or their parents), around this time of year you’re probably worrying about how you can improve your SAT score. If you’ve been following my blog, you know I’ve been questioning the worth of a lot of the standard advice you’re given for improving your chances of getting into college and being successful, but one thing I’ve found is that good SAT or ACT scores are still definitely important for college admission. This is one place that it’s still definitely worth your time to put in some effort. (For a information on schools that will even give you a full ride scholarship based on your SAT score, see the post What ACT or SAT Score Can Get You a Full-Ride Scholarship? by My Kid’s College Choice.)

I’m still working on setting up my blog specific to high school, college, and success, but my son just finished studying for the PSAT, which he took yesterday. (For the difference between the SAT and the PSAT, see What is the PSAT on DIY College Rankings.) His scores were already high, but even with private tutoring he’d reached a limit in his improvement. He was frustrated, so I did a lot of research into how to improve your SAT scores. And he did improve. To the point that he was capable of even perfect scores on practice sections. (In case you’re wondering, I was a National Merit Scholar, back in the day. 🙂 But we didn’t even consider him prepping for National Merit Scholar level until his practice test his sophomore year showed him to be within reach of the qualifying score.)

However, the more I dug into it, I realized that the quest for National Merit recognition now is like trying to get Olympic Gold. In the Olympics, all of the athletes have the skills, and top competitors are separated by fractions of a second. Different athletes will win on different days and some will crumble under the pressure. Same goes for the PSAT. It will be interesting to see if the new format of the PSAT has any effect.

But, if your quest is for high SAT scores or to raise your SAT score, it’s at least not a one day shot. And all your efforts studying for the PSAT will pay off when you take the SAT later….

Back to School – High School anxiety

30 July, 2014 by ES Ivy

If the appearance of “Back to School” aisles in July gave you heart palpitations, you might be wondering if all the stress accompanying what we call “high school” today is worth it. And if you — as a parent — are feeling this way, what do you think your kids are feeling? When did high school get so stressful for parents anyway?

For the summer I’ve taken a break from my series on high school, college, and success to focus on some summer fun and trip preparation. When I spy the back to school sections at the store, I avoid them as much as possible. It’s supposed to be the middle of summer, people! (Although I have to admit that we have already gotten the kids’ new backpacks for next year.)

But Amanda Valentine of Reads4Tweens forwarded me an article by William Deresiewicz on his thoughts about an Ivy League education, Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League: The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies.

And here I thought it was just lack of sleep caused by an over-abundance of homework and extra-curricular “fun” activities….

Success factors 10: Teen stress and anxiety, are ambitious high school schedules leading to success?

25 June, 2014 by ES Ivy

School used to be so easy. Take the hardest classes possible. Do your best. Success will follow.

But have high schools (and the college boards who wrote up the advanced placement curriculum) succeeded in making advanced placement classes so challenging that a student can’t do it all? Or are they just leading to teen stress and anxiety with little to no affect on life-long success?…

Success Factors 9: Are AP classes a good measure for school ratings?

4 June, 2014 by ES Ivy

As I’ve outlined in my previous posts, I’ve been pondering how to guide our kids to the best path of success, starting in high school by analyzing success factors. One answer might be that you try to move into a school district according to the high school ratings. Our school ranks well in U.S. News 2014 Best High Schools Rankings, but what does this mean?

I started thinking about this when we noticed that high school kids at our school seemed to have over-whelming schedules and then noted our own experiences with a full schedules of preAP and AP classes.

In my last post, I gave a quick rundown of my take on The Smartest Kids in the World: and how they got that way, by Amanda Ripley.

What I took from that was that was that based on the studies of Finland and Poland’s educational systems, stress, test, and retest might not be necessary for success. And South Korea’s school system shows that a high stress and test environment has some definite drawbacks.

So I was surprised that when I started reading Amanda Ripley’s blog, I kept running into statistics that used AP tests as a measure of whether of a high school was an academic success. She seems to agree with using AP tests as a way to determine school ratings….