Alexandra Robbins Quotes

I realized that the only way to get into a good college was to be valedictorian or salutatorian. So that was my goal.

Many high school students are under so much competitive pressure. They are sometimes taught that if they don't have a 4.0 GPA, score in the 99th percentile on admissions tests, and demonstrate leadership in sports and participate in clubs, they won't get into college anywhere. Even highly credentialed professionals get caught up in this.

Before high school ended, I started applying to college. It really wasn't even a choice because of the brainwashing of my parents.

I was planning that whole athletic slide into Stanford rather than actually getting a 1450 on my SATs.

I kept up top grades, and by senior year, a flow of mailed college recruiting brochures accumulated into an avalanche on our dining room table.

I want that three quad program! That's what's going to set me apart in the U.S.

American universities have never considered academic merit the sole criterion for admittance.

College applications are such a huge part of senior year, yet often times you never see characters in books actually do work.

I have a daughter who is a sophomore in college and another who is in the 11th grade of high school.

I'm 18, I'm going to graduate high school in a few months.

I was a good student with mathematical ability and interests. As such, I took the usual college preparatory program in high school for one looking to become an engineer: all the available courses in mathematics and science.

In my son's kindergarten, they're telling us how to get him into Stanford. By their advice, I'm doing everything wrong, because I'm trying to make him happy rather than putting him through as many piano lessons as possible.

My public school teachers did a great job of saying, 'Check this out. You're qualified for this. You should explore these opportunities.' They're the ones who said, 'You know, apply to Harvard. You might be a good fit here.'

I don't remember writing anything until I wrote my college application.

You still remember your SAT scores. And everybody else does too. Everybody's forgotten everything about themselves, everything else about high school. They remember their SAT scores.

I started getting letters from college in the tenth grade.

The SAT is not particularly relevant to my life.

Higher SAT scores mean better college matriculation rates. So it's no wonder that private schools in ultra-competitive environments would grease the qualifying process as much as possible.

Between my freshman and senior years of high school in the late '90s, my father spent his evenings, weekends and vacations drilling my best friend and me for our SATs.

Though my parents were professionals and expected me to go to college, they were immigrants from India with no idea about how the admissions process worked in the United States or the importance of standardized tests.

I had very little going for me as a kid except for the fact that I had demanding parents and was very good at filling out bubbles on standardized tests. I went to the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University because I did well on the SAT. I went to Exeter because I did well on the SAT.

I was completely unqualified to get into Harvard. But then I went to my interview for Harvard, and the woman asked, 'Why do you want to go here?' And I took out all of my comedy writing samples that I had done. I couldn't have been more delusional in terms of what I thought they wanted in a candidate for college.

With Michigan's economic future on the line, we can't afford to have our 500 local school districts marching in different directions. Instead, we need a high standards, mandatory curriculum to get all our students on the road to higher education and a good paying job.

In K-12, almost everybody goes to local schools. Universities are a bit different because kids actually do pick the university. The bizarre thing, though, is that the merit of university is actually how good the students going in are: the SAT scores of the kids going in.

Since 'The Overachievers' came out, I've been doing a lot of lectures and talking to kids across the country.