It’s high stress time in NYC. The exams for the specialized high schools occurred on Saturday morning and rotational visits to schools are in full force. Getting your child into the right high school in NYC is running the gauntlet of evaluations, ambiguous criteria, and often unspecified standards. However, my friends at college admission offices tell me that my son’s performance matters more than finding the perfect high school.
That said, fearing a high school’s reputation can be used as a short-cut (heuristic device) to assess college applicants, I won’t stop worrying about finding the perfect high school for my son anytime soon. Cultural stereotypes about the ‘academic father’ set aside, I think most of you can be empathetic with my search for the one ingredient that differentiates one high school school from another.
