OVERACHIEVERS, THE [Paperback]

The author's writing style does an excellent job of bringing these young people to life, and it seems easier to feel sympathy for these youngsters than it was to empathize with the rather bitchy young adults she described in "Pledged".

But Walt Whitman is not only a school for highly achieving, stressed-out, Ivy League strivers. It is also a school for average kids, quiet kids, goths, drug users, dope sellers, artists, devoutly religious kids, and single-pointed nerds who are the farthest thing from the polished, well-rounded, resume kings and queens portrayed in this narrative. At least, it was when I attended the school and graduated nearly twenty years ago, and to a large extent, it probably still is today.

The average students are rarely featured in the narrative, except in terms of their relationships with the overachievers, but it would have been interesting had the author focused a little more on how an elite public school like Walt Whitman shapes the expectations of its average kids.

Many of these youngsters probably benefitted from exposure to high achievers, particularly since they may have shared at least a few AP classes with them (not every AP student is a classic overachiever). But many of the average youngsters also feel the same stress that overachievers experience, along with a greater sense of inadequacy when comparing their modest achievements and SAT scores against the gold standard established by Whitman's top twenty percent. Some of the these average kids may deliberately model their academic and social behavior to contrast with the norm established by the school's dominant elite as a way of establishing their own identities, but whether this helps or harms them in the long run is a topic the author didn't get around to addressing.

On the other hand, one issue that Robbins does not shy away from is the way that schools like Walt Whitman give selected students better grades because their parents are community VIP's or on a school board or committee. In that sense, it becomes a private school for the top-performing students and/or children of elites, and a public school for the rest of us.

I found myself sympathizing with the "stealth achiever" who asks to see the paper that an English teacher may have graded unfairly, only to be told that the paper was unavailable in the classroom. This triggered a memory of my own experience with a 12th grade English teacher, an encounter that sadly recalls "Stealth's" anecdote.

I received "B's" all year on the papers I submitted, right up until the month before the school year ended, when our AP English exam scores became available. My score of "5" must have been an unexpected upset for this teacher, because she wrote a large "A+" in red ink on my two remaining papers that she graded after our scores were posted. Fortunately, I will never forget the look on her face when I tossed the papers on her desk after class during the final week of my Whitman career, and asked her to change the grades back to "B's", because I "preferred consistency to hypocrisy". Still, it is sad to see how little appears to have changed at Whitman in nearly twenty years.

Robbins' book will hopefully make the alumni readers of Walt Whitman and other elite high schools begin to consider if this is the same sort of experience they would want for their own children. My own informal inquiries among my peers have yielded the entire range of opinions, from "Of course not, its a public school, and we've given up on the public schools", to "Its hard on the kids, but its a necessary preparation for the real world", to "When it comes to my own kids, I want the experience to involve a little more happiness and contentment".

My own gut feeling is predisposed towards 'more happiness and contentment' - as a nondescript "average" kid, I went on to some solid achievements once high school and college were over -volunteering as a Peace Corps teacher in one of the world's poorest countries for two years, completing the necessary prerequisites to apply for a master's degree as a physician's assistant, and currently researching and writing what I hope will become my first book. What college did I attend? The University of Maryland, which was widely perceived as a dumping ground for average kids at the time I graduated from Walt Whitman.

M. Miller
Walt Whitman High School, Class of 1988

Let me give a personal perspective on The Overachiever "phenomenon." I am about to start a year off before college because of the extreme mental and physical toll high school took on me.

I took on too much throughout high school because my father pushed me. I interned at a biotech company, I headed three clubs at school, I took a full load of AP classes, and I missed lunch each day. I routinely stayed up all night, or slept 2 or 3 hours, to fit it all in and maintain my grades.

Red Bull was my life. Coke didn't do it anymore. Neither did coffee.

And then one day I passed out in the hallway at my house, and wound up in the hospital for two weeks with an irregular heartbeat from all the caffiene. I was so worn out, so out of shape, such a mess.

And you know what my father's first reaction was? "You're never going to get into Harvard if you're in this hospital and missing all this school!" I kicked him out of the room and cried. I thought I was dying and he was worried about Harvard.

The stories in this book are very real, and very helpful. I thought I was the only one who went through this. And the characters' stories give me hope. Thank you for writing this.

Last year I had to come to school on one of the days SATs were administered. I had to pick up a textbook I left in my locker. I showed up probably about 45 minutes before the SAT started. There were kids throwing up in the bathroom. Others were curled up in tiny balls in corners studying flashcards. And there were three small groups of girls crying in eachother's arms.

I swore I would never be like that. But after a summer of SAT prep courses, where kids even compared how much they were studying every day--and it's supposed to be summer and they're competing over homework!!--and friends coming back from vacation starting to talk about "reach schools," and everything, I'm already feeling the pressure. I told my mom, and she bought me this book. The book could have been written about my school. I mean I know it's not, the author was in Maryland, but the sense of school today, and all the pressures, it's the same here, too.

Now, I don't know of anyone quite like Frank, but I know of people who drive themselves close to that hard. And Taylor and Audrey and even Ryland seemed like some of my friends. I enjoyed the stories, but I also liked the sections telling why things are the way they are. The writer clearly did a ton of work on those sections, too. I didn't spend time reading that part, but she lists the sources at the very back of the book if anyone really needs to fill free time.

I don't think anything will be done for me, since I'm going into junior year and I don't think change happens that quickly. But I hope some good comes of the awareness this book causes.