Tag: prep
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Cram City
Despite these grim odds, young Indians continue arriving in Kota, and the coaching institutes have become a big business, encompassing 300 or so centers that generate $350 million to $450 million in revenue every year, according to one estimate. The largest coaching company, the Allen Career Institute, instructs more than one million students. “There are…
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SHSBADI at 10: Lessons Learned and the Path Forward
We realized that both the admissions process and the school system had changed from the time of our attendance. Many of us came to Stuyvesant by way of gifted classes in our neighborhood public schools. Until the 90s, gifted education was decentralized, with accelerated SP (“special progress”) and IGC (“intellectually gifted”) classes in local schools…
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Program Aims To Level Playing Field For Testing Into NYC’s Specialty High Schools
Parents spend thousands of dollars, students “study to the test” for years. The most popular ( largest ) SHSAT prep program ( Kahn’s Tutorial ) reportedly charges about $2,500 for an 11-month course. Michelle Zhang, a freshman at Stuyvesant High School, knows first hand. “I was in test prep for the SHSAT for three years…
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Attorney Launches ‘DREAMChasers’ Program to Help Underrepresented Students Prepare for SHSAT
The students have been studying with instructors from Khan’s Tutorial. The 11 month course normally costs around $2,500. But these classes, for students from low-income homes, are free—thanks to a program called DREAMChasers. It was created by attorney and Bronx Science alum Jason Clark after visiting his old school and noticing the lack of diversity.…
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The WAVE: School Scope – Those SHSAT Tests, Part 1
This opinion piece dates SHSAT test prep to the 1950s. Of course, the entrance exam was not called “SHSAT” back then, and there was one exam per school. When I was an 8th grade student in the 1957-58 school year at George Gershwin JHS, a jewel of a school recently opened on Linden Blvd in…
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Video: New York City Students and Alumni on the Specialized High School Test
Powerful testimony on the effect’s of a NYC’s single-measure, high-stakes admissions system. And how the pressure affected the mental health of a group of 12 year-old students.
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Bangladeshi families prep for controversial specialized high school exam
About 40 middle school children—all but one from Bangladeshi immigrant families in the Bronx—sat quietly inside a stark classroom at Khan’s Tutorial in Parkchester on a Sunday afternoon in September. Barely audible from the upstairs classroom were the sounds of children playing at a nearby park as the 12 and 13-year-olds reviewed fractions, greatest common…
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How private tutoring makes an unequal education system even less fair
Studies show that almost every student can improve their grades with private tutoring. But when only the rich can afford it — in New York the average cost of private tutoring is $64 an hour, though rates can easily approach and even exceed $100 — it’s no surprise their children are overrepresented in elite high schools and colleges, at…
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A Summer of Test Prep Means More Asians in the City’s Elite Schools
Those involved in the tutoring business believe the deck is stacked because too many smart kids don’t even know about the importance of test prep. While certain Asian immigrants have created a pipeline of tutoring centers, educators say black and Latino students often don’t have the same networks in their communities. https://www.wnyc.org/story/certain-immigrants-tutoring-key-specialized-high-schools-test/
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Stop relying on just one test: Mayor de Blasio is right to try to want to turn away from the SHSAT high school admissions exam
I was the valedictorian of my eighth-grade class and earned a special honor for never missing a day of school, but that wasn’t enough to help me, or others like me, gain admission into schools like American Studies. Instead, a single specialty test was used to gauge my intelligence, work ethic and worthiness. The mayor’s…