Can somebody tell me...

Northstarmom
Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:05:33 +0000

Across the board, you’ll gain by reading more, particularly books like the classics, and excellent newspapers like the NY Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, and Washington Post, which you can read on-line.

Reading will expand your vocabulary, general knowledge, sophistication and critical thinking skills. No matter what major you enter, those skills will help you.

When you get to college, use the professors’ office hours, tutoring, counseling and other resources to help you catch up.

I used to teach college and saw hard working students from low performing high schools start off behind, but some ended college graduating magna. Typically, too, my experience was that students from low performing schools were smarter than were the students from high performing schools. The low performing school students may have had low scores due to the education they got at their high schools. Given the opportunity to learn in depth, they ended up bypassing the students who had done well due to their luck in having highly educated parents and attending excellent secondary schools.