My Flaws In High School

While reading Ken Bain’s book “What the Best College Students Do” of the five different types of students he describes, I feel like I fall under the label of one having mediocre grades but achieving success. I make good grades, however I do not necessarily believe my grades always reflect my hard work, determination and effort put in, similar to his theory on false hope in standardized testing. Throughout my school career, I have consistently made A and B grades. I can remember only one C grade, which was a quarter grade, and very disappointing, but a lesson learned. At the same time though, and as Bain helped me realize through his text, grades are not everything and making a C is not something that is going to kill me; there is simply more to school than a letter grade. In fact he points out through most of the 1800s schools only used two grades, pass or fail. As seen nowadays, schools have since adopted the letter grade system.

In the story “I Just Wanna Be Average” the author Mike Rose argues that society very often neglects and doesn’t see the full value and potential of students.

The Self-Worth Project is a photo documentation where people write their biggest insecurity on their body in order to bring awareness to the struggle some people deal with every day. Seeing so many people embrace their insecurities and then having the courage to expose them caused me to think about what my biggest insecurity. After thinking about it for some time, it became evident that my biggest insecurity in a single word is “Inadequacy.” My whole life I have always had a problem with not being good enough. Personally the only thing that is worse than not being good enough is being barely not good enough. I believe that this insecurity stems from experiences in high school. In high school, the first STAAR test occurred in my 10th grade year. I failed the English portion of the exam by one point. This was also the first test I have ever failed. Ever since then, inadequacy has been by biggest insecurity. Even though this event happened years ago it still has an effect on my self-image making me worrying about submitting any kind of work. I can double and

In December 2014, The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education published “Rethinking the Admission Process.” This article was written by Frank DiMaria, who takes a look at the research of the former president of the University of Wyoming, Robert Sternberg. DiMaria explains Sternberg’s stance against the current admissions process. Sternberg has research that depicts, “GPA, standardized tests, and essays do not successfully measure the true talent of a college applicant.” He believes that the policies need to change. Sternberg offers an alternative to the current process. Sternberg has been a part of a new admissions policy testing students not just on their memorization and analytical skills, but on their creative, practical, and wisdom-based skills as well. Sternberg’s ideas stem from his experience with disadvantaged youth and their ability to adapt and overcome obstacles. Sternberg claims that students who grow up in the upper middle class tend to have an environment which better values the analytical skills that the current tests measure. He argues that, because of this, colleges may not be getting the most creative and adaptable students. He shows that some of these less privileged students are capable of handling a college workload even though they may not have been able to score as high on the SAT or other tests. DiMaria believes that through Sternberg’s Kaleidoscope policy may be a solution. The Kaleidoscope way of admissions administers tests which ask open ended

Being admitted into college is a difficult process, one that requires students to be diligent in their studies, engage in a number of extracurricular activities, and overcome the everyday pressures and challenges that high-schoolers face across the country. Admittedly, not everyone in the United States is born with the same opportunities as socioeconomic factors as well as historic injustices have contributed to a society in which some people are far more likely to achieve upward mobility – of which, obtaining a college degree is a necessary part – than others. While there is need to rectify this reality,

For my entire life of schooling, both my parents and I would agree that I constantly complained about the educational systems in which I was enrolled. But when I actually take the time to think about everything I have been through, I realize that I have indeed had an excellent education. My schooling was full of opportunities and experiences, all of which contributed to the person I am today; adequate education has been an indispensable facet of my being. Sadly, not everyone has had this same privilege. And now as a college student, I am becoming even more aware of this sad fact. Looking around me in such a diverse city as Chicago, I find myself being more and more grateful. When I read Jonathan Kozol's Fremont High School, this these

On December 2, 2016, in the opinion editorial, “How to Get In,” Susan Estrich, best-selling author and liberal columnist for the Creators, argues that hard work, not college acceptances, determine people’s future successes, challenging the notion that people’s opportunities and potentials are defined by the colleges they enter. Refuting the misconception that “getting into the right college is a meal ticket for life,” Estrich argues that GPA’s and LSAT’s may decide the difference between rejection and acceptance, but ultimately, tenacious hard work throughout life counts “for more than anything else,” before concluding that the “secret to a good application” is honesty and that, although she understands admissions can be partisan and erroneous through personal experience, in the end, she “did just fine”- an echoing sentiment to all prospective college applicants. Estrich

Journalist Alexandra Robbins, in her book, The Overachievers, follows the lives of various high school students in order to demonstrate that students today are under extensive pressure from sports, standardized tests, the college application process, and school itself. Robbins effectively argues that the overachiever culture in America and throughout the world is severely detrimental to students and society as a whole. First, she uses logos and examples to prove her point. Her use of many anecdotes of varied characters from different areas of the country portrays the widespread effects of overachiever society.

The essay of I Just Want To Be Average by Mike Rose is a story of Rose’s high school experience. When Rose was a freshman, he was placed in his school’s vocational program, a program meant for the “underachieving” students. This program was meant to teach these struggling students specific trades when they could not get by in the other academic classes. Rose goes on to explain the many personalities he met in the vocational program and how they impacted his life. Rose told about how he was very unmotivated and not interested in education his first few years of school simply for the fact that his peers and teachers were also unmotivated and not interested. It seemed to be that students in the vocational program were not deemed as important and just slipped through the cracks of their education.

In the novel, “A Hope in the Unseen” written by Ron Suskind explains the journey of Cedric Jennings from the Inner City to the Ivy League. Throughout his journey Cedric Jennings has had to navigate many challenges first at Ballou High School, then MIT in the summer, and finally at Brown University. During his High school career at Ballou he received many backlash from his peers because of his devotion to his studies. In Ballou High School, “the school’s dropout/transfer rate at nearly 50 percent, it’s understandable that kids at Ballou act as though they’re just passing through”(Suskind 3) but not Cedric. He had a determination like no other to succeed academically where he would often stay after to finish his homework and work on SAT practice

Daniel Golden throughout his book argues that the nation's most exclusive colleges (primarily the Ivy Leagues) Require some sort of hook to be admitted for most students leaving many students who deserve to get in behind because they are not the children of rich parents, a celebrity’s child or celebrity themselves, a legacy of a long running family, an athlete in patrican sports, or it can come down to being a race that is not popular among exclusive schools. Golden presents all of these arguments in an accurate manner with statistics and quotes from a wide variety of people and with that offers a strong argument and while very competent is not without its faults. No one person's opinion can be withouts its success and faults in the eyes

When the committee chooses the applicants that they want, they choose kids with very unique qualities. They have to stand out from others and be well rounded; basically be perfect in the university eyes. Those kids would be described as stereotypical ultra-high achieving elite college students or in James Atlas words “Super People”. William Deresiewicz shared his own personal experience about being in the Ivy Leagues in his article. “These enviable youngsters appear to be the winners in the race we have made of childhood”, said Deresiewicz. He watched many of his students on campus and realized that the reality is different. The elite education system has students who are smart and driven but also students who are insecure and clueless to their purpose in this world. They are great at what they do but they don’t really know why they are doing it. Many students hide behind this façade and hide their fears, anxiety or depression. It’s very unhealthy, but they will do whatever they have to do to succeed. The students are terrified of failing, it’s very scary and they can’t take that risk because it could jeopardize their future. Some students leave the Ivy League schools because they felt as if the environment was stifling their soul. They want to experience getting a real education and live life to the

Many people believe that their image and prestige is the number one thing they should be worried about. That if they don’t perfect in school and go to a prestigious school that their life won’t amount to anything. Well let me tell you that this is a naive and mislead view of the world and completely untrue because those that have actually made it in this world either stumble into it on accident or because they actually decided to work towards improving themselves before improving their transcripts. Let me tell you the story of Andre Holguin, a 23 year old young man who was bullied as a kid, had a hard time fitting in, and did horrible in highschool yet somehow has

As my beliefs should, they have greatly changed over the past year. Looking back, I should be able to think of ways of how I can improve, and of ways that I have improved. Everyday I should be a better person than I was yesterday. Everybody likes to think that they are above average and better than everybody else. When I thought about this, I always assumed that everybody else was wrong to assume this, but I was still a lot smarter, hardworking and a more ethical person. I recognized that everybody else had biases towards themselves, but I didn’t recognize my own bias towards myself. It was only after considering how I could improve myself that I could admit that there were many faults in me. I was acting with a mind polluted with ego and

Throughout my self-observation, I felt the need to start with a baseline of who I am. Being raised in the south I learned to respect myself and others, but sometimes people are just right down obnoxious. Also, I hold myself to high standards because there’s no reason why I cannot make my goals a reality if I give it my all. This is known as Self-Concept: “The relatively stable set of perceptions you hold of yourself.” (Page 63) For example, in my observation I notice my patience level is very thin for people who do not have respect for other’s education. There's one girl in particular yesterday, who texted the whole class, which my nursing class is from 8:30am to 2pm. Therefore, as I'm trying to listen and highlight in my book, only thing I hear is the sound of her long nails tapping on her keyboard or her phone vibrating. Than during break she wants to ask me for the notes, because the teacher was moving too fast. Since this is still the first couple of weeks of school, I try to be a little more understanding, but I will not do someone’s work just for them not to pay attention. Therefore today, when the test came around I had studied my butt off and scored very well. But for the girl that sits next to me, she complained that the test was too hard and how we didn't have the appropriate information to study for the test. In that moment, I found myself comparing our differences, I work hard for my grades. I study and work my butt off then there's those people that don't do anything in class but are the first ones to complain. The book recognized this as Social Comparison: “Evaluating ourselves in terms of how we compare with others.”(Page 66) Throughout the rest of my day, I noticed I compare myself to a lot of different people without even noticing. Like when I was driving home I saw all these people texting and driving, and I just could not help thinking like “what the heck, I can’t even look to the side without going into the other line so how in the world are they texting!” I do not compare myself to other to prove whose better but I believe it just natural to compare others to yourself.