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What High Schools Don't Tell You: 300+ Secrets to Make Your Kid Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year
Read Elizabeth Wissner-Gross' posts on the Penguin Blog
From the author of What Colleges Don't Tell You , 250 secrets for raising the kid colleges will compete to accept
The headlines prove 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 250 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.
From the author of What Colleges Don't Tell You , 250 secrets for raising the kid colleges will compete to accept
The headlines prove 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 250 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.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published July 19, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 3, 2017
Great resource for highly motived children.
March 21, 2017
Full of good tips
October 9, 2012
If you’ve got a student in high school and are casting about ways to “get them into college” on short notice, "What High Schools Don’t Tell You" will help you. If you’ve got a middle schooler or a ninth grader, then this book will be even better.
Elizabeth Wissner-Gross follows up her popular "What Colleges Don’t Tell You" with this guide to making “your child irresistible to college by senior year.” While she shares 300+ secrets with you on how to do this, her basic premise is that if you create an aggressive Game Plan before high school and if you fund competitive enrichment activities for your child during the summer months, your student will indeed become irresistible.
The trick, of course, is figuring out your child’s strengths and passions while they are in middle school so that you can create a Game Plan for high school. If you can, you’re in luck! Wissner-Gross’ guide provides an array of opportunities that are appropriate for those kids who love math, science & engineering, the arts, the humanities, journalism, government or business.
Her biggest secret, though, is that “the time for your child to stand out from the pack and gain an edge both for college admission and [their] future career” is during the summer months. She stresses the importance of lining up appropriate enrichment activities- such as talent searches, summer courses and internships - to create a track record that supports the Game Plan.
Her ideas are practical and admirable. You start with a plan and figure out what supplemental activities will complement the end goal. Sounds perfectly logical, right? As a parent, though, the premise makes me cringe a bit. We’ve heard again and again that kids today are over scheduled. Do parents really need to push them into more activities during eight weeks of summer downtime? Even more disconcerting, can parents afford (expensive) summer activities when they’ve got four years of (expensive) college looming on the horizon?
In the end, I think that the answer is, “Yes.” Yes, parents do need to help their children develop a Game Plan and, yes, parents need to help their children come up with relevant summer activities. As parents, our job is to ready our children for life by the time that they leave for college. They don’t need to go to an expensive summer program at a fancy college or go to Cambodia to help orphans; they can try a college level class at a community college or babysit in their church nursery instead- if that is relevant to their Game Plan. Helping them develop some type of Plan, really any Plan, is better than No Plan, and encouraging them to try new activities that complement their interests are two great tools to have in the toolbox of life.
**[I think that this book may have been replaced by "What High Schools Don't Tell You (And Other Parents Don't Want You toKnow): Create a Long-Term Plan for Your 7th to 10th Grader for Getting into the Top Colleges" as this one no longer seems available for purchase.]**
Elizabeth Wissner-Gross follows up her popular "What Colleges Don’t Tell You" with this guide to making “your child irresistible to college by senior year.” While she shares 300+ secrets with you on how to do this, her basic premise is that if you create an aggressive Game Plan before high school and if you fund competitive enrichment activities for your child during the summer months, your student will indeed become irresistible.
The trick, of course, is figuring out your child’s strengths and passions while they are in middle school so that you can create a Game Plan for high school. If you can, you’re in luck! Wissner-Gross’ guide provides an array of opportunities that are appropriate for those kids who love math, science & engineering, the arts, the humanities, journalism, government or business.
Her biggest secret, though, is that “the time for your child to stand out from the pack and gain an edge both for college admission and [their] future career” is during the summer months. She stresses the importance of lining up appropriate enrichment activities- such as talent searches, summer courses and internships - to create a track record that supports the Game Plan.
Her ideas are practical and admirable. You start with a plan and figure out what supplemental activities will complement the end goal. Sounds perfectly logical, right? As a parent, though, the premise makes me cringe a bit. We’ve heard again and again that kids today are over scheduled. Do parents really need to push them into more activities during eight weeks of summer downtime? Even more disconcerting, can parents afford (expensive) summer activities when they’ve got four years of (expensive) college looming on the horizon?
In the end, I think that the answer is, “Yes.” Yes, parents do need to help their children develop a Game Plan and, yes, parents need to help their children come up with relevant summer activities. As parents, our job is to ready our children for life by the time that they leave for college. They don’t need to go to an expensive summer program at a fancy college or go to Cambodia to help orphans; they can try a college level class at a community college or babysit in their church nursery instead- if that is relevant to their Game Plan. Helping them develop some type of Plan, really any Plan, is better than No Plan, and encouraging them to try new activities that complement their interests are two great tools to have in the toolbox of life.
**[I think that this book may have been replaced by "What High Schools Don't Tell You (And Other Parents Don't Want You toKnow): Create a Long-Term Plan for Your 7th to 10th Grader for Getting into the Top Colleges" as this one no longer seems available for purchase.]**
February 19, 2008
Wow. If you have a kid who is nearing middle school, this is very enlightening. Because I was so unprepared for college, I decided to get this (Brooklyn will be in 7th grade next year!), and I'm so glad I did. It categorizes student interests and makes suggestions for activities that colleges love to see. For instance, Brooklyn loves Greek mythology right now. If she ends up wanting to major in classics, it suggests the Medusa test, a nationwide optional exam on mythology, and taking Greek or Latin as a summer course online. Now, I would have never known or thought about these ideas, but they are simple enough things to do.
February 10, 2009
This book is terrible. It is exactly the opposite message of the books I like. This is saying "here's how you should be overscheduling your kid to get them into college." The books I like say "don't do your kids work for them. Don't overschedule them or start in pre-school. Other than the for top few colleges, it doesn't work that way."
September 24, 2014
Loved this book. Summarizes the steps for a student who wants to get into a specific field before college. I didn't like the tones of overt competitiveness, since there are so many areas of possible study, can't we all be friends? But I will definitely revisit this when my kids are middle school age.
February 6, 2017
Really useful information, and I read it at the right age (when my kid is a sixth grader) to be able to plan like she suggests.
March 6, 2011
I was exhausted just reading it. While it had some useful tidbits, I simply can't approach the last years of my son's childhood in this manner. I'm sure there are teens out there for whom this book makes sense - it's just not for us.
March 25, 2014
Great ideas but I think most of the book is geared towards highly gifted kids to stand out. I enjoyed reading about finding your child's dreams and funneling their energies in the summers towards them. I got some great tips though for my above average child!
January 21, 2008
This book was so interesting.
March 30, 2011
I think this book is directed for really motivated, highly qualified kids.
But it did motivate me to get them ready for SAT's, ACT's, and volunteering...things like that.
But it did motivate me to get them ready for SAT's, ACT's, and volunteering...things like that.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews