NYT Article on Korean Prep Schools and their High SAT® Schools

[SATNinja]

There’s an inspiring story in today’s New York Times (which by the way, is a great source of SAT-level reading material) about students in special preparatory schools in South Korea that regularly send large portions of each class to the top colleges here in the States. What’s most amazing is that these South Korean students, whose native language is obviously not English, out perform their American peers on the SAT. Their average SAT scores are 2203, about 700 points higher than the American national average and still considerably higher than the top performing American preparatory schools such as Philips Exeter.

This should motivate those of you for whom English is your first language (and everyone else for that matter). There’s definitely no excuse for not doing well on the SAT Reasoning Test. I know from personally teaching and tutoring high scoring Korean students, some of whom were from these schools, that much of what they achieve is through sheer will, preparation, and hard work. It’s not about natural intelligence, resources, or even good teachers (although I would love to take that credit), but rather their attitude.

So for those of you preparing for the May test in the next few weeks, I have two points for you: first, KNOW that you can achieve those scores that seem “out of reach” and second, put in the effort and hard work to achieve them. There’s still time! Good luck.

Oh and if you want to check out the article you can find it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/world/asia/27seoul.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5087&em&en=6b2231730731aba4&ex=1209441600