Monday, July 20, 2009

SHSAT Prep and Stuyvesant Work Load

This was provided as a comment, but it is so comprehensive I am uploading as a post as well. —Sara

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I have two thoughts about SHSAT tutoring: Although we found tutoring to be extremely helpful (Next Level Learning in Manhattan) and my daughter probably wouldn’t have gotten into Stuyvesant without it, her first year was EXTREMELY tough and she definitely wasn't prepared for five hours of homework a night. Now it's all I can do to convince her to stick with it. Her social life has evaporated and she's still trying to get us to transfer her out. If the beginning of this year doesn’t go significantly better we’ll probably withdraw her and see about getting into Beacon (which is supposed to be awesome!). The stress is very high at Stuyvesant and a lot of kids and parents I talk to weren’t totally aware of what they were in for, even after attending the fair.

So my advice is, before you make a serious attempt at the SHSAT, make sure your son fully understands the demands and is willing to invest himself in a very serious and challenging program. Once you have that out of the way then check with friends and get referrals to tutors. At this late stage I would say you probably have to go with a tutor, unless your son is the kind of kid who’s self-motivated and willing to cram for the next several months. Our tutor gave our daughter some kind of assessment test and then focused their work on her greatest weakness (math). She also struggled with the paragraphs that you have to sort and rearrange so the repetition for that was useful.

Provided by Lisa deMauro, Counselor, The Computer School

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