What Is The Message Of Overachievers By Alexandra Robbins

Every fall millions of American adolescents gear up to apply for the thousands of colleges and universities across the nation. For many students this process is a simple-natural progression through a linear educational track in which no extra preparation, beyond a paper application, is required. However, for many students college preparation can begin as early as conception. Alexandria Robbins follows the stories of nine students from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. Whitman is known for and could be summarized by a simple term in which Robbins’ book is also titled: Overachievers. The author explores the hectic nature of helicopter parenting, bureaucratic admission processes, the culture of Ivy (a term describing the upper

In “How Not to Get into College”, Kohn states that all decisions and goals made by students are based on extrinsic motivators, and that they are essentially controlling them. He tells the students in a sarcastic tone to “let grades control your life. All decisions about how to spend your time and plan your academic schedule should be arrived at with grades in mind” (para 2). Kohn discusses the problem that students are facing with their early lives and education: they allow extrinsic motivations such as grades to rule their lives, and make decisions that benefit them extrinsically rather than intrinsically. This which creates an issue as they lose the inner motivation to strive for the top. Furthermore, in “Somnambulist”, Jones discusses how people are continuously exhausting themselves by making decisions that are based off extrinsic motivators. He writes that individuals are “exhausting [their] skills but not to worry cause’ every two weeks [they] get a cut of government regulated and filtered income” (lines 17-18). Jones argues that individuals within society are continuously exhausting their valuable skills, as well as themselves on a daily basis as they work towards

Chapter 1: In the first chapter Robbins introduces the students she followed along with the overachiever culture that has rearranged high schools only purpose into getting students into the most prestigious Colleges and Universities rather than the school that would be the best fit for each student.

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.

Did you know that the average high school student in today’s society has the same levels of anxiety as a psychiatric patient in the 1950s? According to psychologist Robert Leahy, school these days can get a little tough– especially when most students’ first response to a heavy backpack full of homework is to worry over whether or not it can be done. In the past decade, Leahy and other psychologists have noticed a steady nationwide increase in the amount of stress caused by schoolwork among high school students (Slate Magazine). What does this mean for tomorrow’s leaders and future generations of dignitaries? Scientists have concluded that sleep deprivation, long-term health problems, and declining overall academic achievement are

Another area many people tend to aim to be successful in is the concept of the American Dream. It is thought that if you live in America you need to fulfill the goal of achieving the American Dream and if it is not achieved or not meant to be achieved then the life lived has been a failure. Older generations and even present generations want the younger generations to get good grades, have a ‘successful’ college life, get a professional job, get married, have kids, and buy a big, just because that is normal to everyone but some may choose to live their life not as vanilla. William Zinsser talks about how everyone just follows the social norm in order to be seen as successful, “Our advertisements and TV commercials are a hymn to material success, our magazines articles a toast to people who made it to the top... He is our national idol, and everybody else is our national fink” (Zinsser 601). Becoming a specific type of successful is being pushed onto teenagers who are still struggling to find out who they are and what they want to do. They may want to figure out a different way to become successful in their own independent way.

Julie Lythcott-Haims explains to us all what a perfect child is; straight A student, fabulous test scores, gets homework done without parents asking them to do it… She has the right idea, the right mindset of a parent, every parent wants their child to succeed in life. The way that parents are parenting their children is messing them up. They don’t have a chance to become themselves, they are too focused on whether they did good on that test that they were stressing about for a week, they are too worried about getting the best grade to be able to get accepted into the biggest name colleges around. The parents become too consumed with hovering over their children making sure that they are doing flawlessly in school, the parents are directing their every single move they make. The children then began to think that their parents love comes from the good grades. Then they start making this checklist; Good grades, what they want to be when they grow up, get accepted into good colleges, great SAT scores, the right GPA, the jock of the sports team.

Standardized testing has been around since the early 1900’s. Today, it determines a high school student’s future. Every year juniors in high school start to prepare months in advance for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Along with the test itself, comes stress that is not necessary. The debate of standardized tests defining a student’s academic ability or not has become a recent popular controversial topic. Many colleges and universities are starting to have test optional applications because they are realizing that a single test score does not demonstrate the knowledge of a student. There is more value in a student that should rule an acceptance or rejection. In the article, “SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions” Capterton states, “The SAT has proven to be valid, fair, and a reliable data tool for college admission” (Capterton). Capterton, president of the College Board, believes that the SAT’s and ACT’s should be used to determine a student’s acceptance because it is an accurate measure. What Capterton and deans of admissions of colleges and universities don’t know is the abundant amount of resources upper class families have for preparation, the creative talents a student has outside of taking tests, and the amount of stress they put on a 17 year old.

Every student is different, from how they learn to how much effort do they put in when studying. But with the right teacher guiding them to success, nothing is impossible. So, how do we motivate the future generation to succeed in school? The Perils and Promise of Praise, by Carole S. Dweck. The author focus on how to motivate students to succeed in school. From how you talk to them, motivate them to learn and rewarding them.

Journalist Alexandra Robbins ventures back to her old high school to examine the competitive efforts students are having to take to compete on the battlefield that is the education system in her book, The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids. Robbins explores the lives of multiple students who are stressed and pressured to maintain good grades and get into an Ivy League college. This text allows for intriguing insight on how the educational system has “spiraled out of control” and displays the different measures students must now take to be the best. Robbins’ The Overachievers is an eye-opening bestseller which exposes the social pressures and anxieties students must overcome in their high school lives as they attempt to impress and prove to colleges they are worthy of acceptance.

Despite with agreeing to Harvard’s’ proposed idea of lessening the importance of standardized tests, specifically tests like the SAT, I disagree with the idea of putting more emphasis on community service. I, personally, believe that the standardized tests are stressing students a bit too much; however, by lessening the importance of the standardized tests, I do not find it necessarily beneficial to fill the spot with community service. The Admission Department should focus on every aspect evenly whether it is on standardized tests, extracurricular activities, or community service.

In his op-ed, “Are Kids Too Coddled?,” author Frank Bruni argues that children need to be exposed to the harshness of reality. According to Bruni, “praise… can lessen motivation and set children up to be demoralized when they invariably fail at something” (par. 25). By showering children in praise even when they are not successful, students will never learn the importance of hard work. There is no reason to put in effort to go above and beyond expectations if mediocre work receives the same amount of acknowledgement. Due to the excess of undeserved praise, Bruni believes that “students have an inflated sense of their academic prowess” (par. 26). Students expect to get good grades without studying and working hard. In order to reverse the damage caused by sheltering our children, Bruni argues that an application of more rigorous standards in school is necessary to make America’s children “ready to compete globally” (par. 29). By setting higher standards, students will be able to learn more and attain true academic excellence.

In the TedTalk, Julie Lythcott-Haims discusses overparenting and the pressure parents put on their children to succeed. Parents want the best for their children and they are told that the best thing for their children is success, and to achieve this success they must get into a certain university.

Generalized anxiety is a problem that the United States faces nationwide. As we grow older and move into educational settings that are more taxing, anxiety becomes more prevalent. Today, college students are facing more stress than ever before. They are constantly pushed to be the best they can be, to be in the most extracurricular activities they can be in, and to attend the best schools possible. All of these goals and high expectations lead students to be harder on themselves, which makes other aspects of their life fall by the wayside, leading to high levels of stress and pressure.

Which collects the health statistics of students from universities all around the world every second year, reported that 40.2 percent of Santa Clara University students identified that stress affected their individual academic performance during the last 12 months of their studies (Temple,2011). Temple (2011) reported a survey conducted in 2004 that assessed the overall well-being of 47,202 undergraduates nationwide. The findings were that 32.4 percent of students recognized stress as the main obstacle to their academic performance. This was said to be above the common cold, depression, death of a relative, sexual assault and eating disorders. Stress is “once considered as the nation’s number one health epidemic; prolonged stress can lead to ulcers, heart disease, stroke, major depression and to a shorter life span” (Temple, 2011).