My 17-year-old daughter Jessica is taking her SAT-II tests
right now in Math and Biology. I dropped her off at 7:45 a.m.
at Lincoln High School here in San Jose. The Junior year of High
School at Harker is all
about creating objective evidence of who you
are and how good you are so that you can have your choice of
universities. So far, Jessica has taken Advance Placement (AP)
European History, the SAT-I (Writing, Reading, Math), the SAT-II
in U.S. History and English Literature. After today, she has
one more big test this year, in AP U.S. History (or “A-Push” as
she calls it). She will take her SAT-II in Latin and maybe
Chemistry too next year, plus two more APs.
When I was Jessica’s age, I too went to a good college prep. school
(Burke’s in San Francisco)
but there were fewer standardized tests available. I only took
SATs (like the SAT-I today – in Math and English) and one
AP (in English). I think it was the only AP class my school had.
Harker offers AP courses in at least a dozen subjects, plus as
many honors classes.
Jessica (who takes mostly honors classes) tells me that the
material for an AP class and an honors class is about the same
level of difficulty but that an honors class has tests all through the
year while an AP class is aimed at one test given by the
College Board national testing company. Ironically, many
colleges have started treating High School honors and AP classes as
the same. Because of this, some students take the AP course but
not the test. In my own case, my high SAT and AP scores got me
out of at least a year of boring Freshman year survey courses at
the University of
California, so the tests were well worth the trouble.
I know I never studied as hard as Jessica does. She has a stack of
large format SAT and AP prep manuals that she carries around. At
most meals lately, she has one in her lap unless I take it away from her.
She has gotten very high scores on the tests so far but the pressure
and expectations are still intense. If Jessica wants to go to Princeton,
Georgetown, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Brown, Tufts, Oberlin, or any other
top school, high standardized test scores seem to be an unavoidable
entry requirement. It is a painful and stressful process and I can only
admire how well she is handling it.
[Jessica came back from taking the SAT-II tests on Saturday and said they
went well. She also patiently reminded me that she had already taken her
A-Push exam. She is waiting to take the first of her four
final exams at Harker this morning. After the last exam on Wednesday,
Jessica is done for this year!]
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