The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids
Book description: "High school isnt what it used to be. With record numbers of students competing fiercely to get into college, schools are no longer primarily places of learning. Theyre dog-eat-dog battlegrounds in which kids must set aside interests and passions in order to strategize over how to game the system. In this increasingly stressful environment, kids arent defined by their character or hunger for knowledge, but by often arbitrary scores and statistics." "In The Overachievers, journalist Alexandra Robbins delivers a poignant, funny, riveting narrative that explores how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins returns to her high school, where she follows students. Robbins tackles hard-hitting issues such as the student and teacher cheating epidemic, over-testing, sports rage, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that some students are driven to depression and suicide because of a B. " I appreciated Robbins style of using real student's stories and backing them up with expert opinion, studies, and facts. Unforntunately, following a group of students' stories from beginning to end slowed the book down. I would have preferred a few stories about each student as a real world example of stress, pressure, suicide, crazy parents, kindergarten admissions, and so on. Maybe too much detail was too much of a good thing. Still it's a good read for any parent of a future high schooler, especially one considering applying for an Ivy League (or West Coast equivalent) school.