Admissions Tests

When I was in high school, I remember getting up early one Saturday morning to take my college entrance exam. Several years later, I went through the same thing when I took my entrance exam for graduate school.

In the weeks prior to both exams, I took practice tests that were available in local bookstores, but they were hardly the same as actually studying for the entrance exams. You couldn't really study for the exams. You could only prepare yourself for the format because there was no telling what kind of questions would be asked.

And the practice tests, as I recall, had strategic tips for the test taker. One such tip was that it was better to leave a question blank if you didn't know the answer because you would be penalized more for guessing incorrectly.

The questions were multiple choice questions, like the ones on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" but you were on your own when you began taking the test. There were no lifelines to utilize — no audience to consult, no friend to phone.

I'm sure those tests are still as stressful as they were when I took them. I was about 17 when I took my college entrance exam and I was about 10 years older than that when I took the entrance exam for grad school.

I can only imagine how stressful it must be for 4–year–olds in Manhattan who, according to the New York Times, are taking admissions tests for kindergarten.

And, apparently, some parents are committing large sums of money to preparing their young children to take these admissions tests, even though, as Sharon Otterman reports in the Times, "[p]rivate schools warn that they will look negatively on children they suspect of being prepped for the tests they use to select students."

It reminds me of an episode of Frasier, in which Niles and Daphne were preparing an application for a "pre–kindergarten and daycare center" on behalf of their not–yet conceived child because the waiting list was several years long.

"It's pre–kindergarten," Daphne protested. "They run around, they sing, they nap."

How special can the school be, she wanted to know.

"I hear that the top 2% in coloring and putting away can pretty much write their own ticket," Niles replied.

Maybe there are kindergartens in Manhattan that really are that special. But I think of the kindergarten I attended when I was 5, and it wasn't very special at all.

It was called "Bluebird Kindergarten," and the teacher ran it from her home. A small classroom had been added to the back of the house, and it was in that room that the teacher instructed us in forming letters and numbers with pencil and paper. We colored pictures. Sometimes we sang songs. Sometimes we took naps. During our recess breaks, we went outside and used rocks to crack open pecans that fell from a tree in the back yard.

At the end of the year, there was a "graduation ceremony." The boys wore blue caps and gowns, the girls wore pink caps and gowns. I don't recall any lengthy speeches — it probably would have been difficult to keep two dozen 5– and 6–year–olds still during a speech. I think "graduation" was mainly a few words from the teacher thanking the parents for their cooperation, followed by distribution of certificates to the pupils.

The whole thing probably took less than half an hour.

It wasn't the Harvard of pre–schools, but my classmates and I learned the basics that gave us the foundations we needed for first grade.

And our parents didn't have to spend thousands of dollars to prepare us for admissions tests.