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I once had two different students who were indeed very different. I liked them both, and they were both friendly, interesting individuals. However, when it came to preparing for the SAT and ACT, and schoolwork in general I later learned, their approaches were very different.
I’ll call the first student Mike. Truth be told, Mike wasn’t extraordinarily brilliant in any obvious way. If a bunch of kids his age sat down to take an IQ test, I’m pretty confident Mike would have fallen somewhere in the middle. However, nothing about Mike’s life was average. He was president of his class at a very large high school, he was a star athlete who was widely respected by his coaches and fellow athletes and he had put in hundreds of hours of community service in pursuit of his Eagle Scout designation. Mike was the sort of student who pursued excellence in everything he did. He was also a very likable kid who always brought a positive attitude.
I’ll call the second student Adam. Adam was a very smart kid. If he sat down to take that IQ test, I’m pretty confident he would have scored in the top 3%, if not higher. Adam was so smart that I quickly noticed he was often bored with his schoolwork, which caused a lack of preparation. This lack of preparation, of course, would lead to him receiving mediocre grades. Adam relied on his natural ability and intellect to skate by and often put in only the minimum amount of effort. He didn’t have any major accomplishments or positions that would look good on a college application, and he often showed a lack of engagement in anything related to academics. To be fair, Adam was also a likable kid, but he didn’t always have the best work ethic or a very ambitious attitude.
When I started working with Mike, he was scoring below average on both the SAT and ACT. Over the course of the next few months, I watched Mike really engage in our sessions and take my homework assignments seriously. Like most areas of his life, he began to see success. His scores steadily improved. First, they became average. Not long after, they were a good amount above average. By the time we were finished, his now very good ACT score, coupled with his outstanding resume, landed him a major scholarship at an excellent university. I was very happy for Mike because I was absolutely certain that he would succeed in college and go on to have a successful career. He had earned that opportunity.
When I started working with Adam, he was scoring around the 85th percentile. His score was already good enough to probably get into a lot of schools, even coupled with his mediocre grades. He often didn’t even look at the homework problems I assigned for him, and his engagement in our sessions was very limited. He was a nice kid, and he was never rude or disrespectful. He just didn’t care. He knew he was smart, but he relied on his raw intelligence rather than preparation for the ACT and SAT. The problem, of course, is that relying on one’s raw intelligence won’t produce any improvements. Adam was already intelligent when he took the test the first time, so in order to improve on that score, something other than pure intelligence must be added to the equation. Adam’s score only saw marginal improvements. He went on to get into a pretty good school, but he didn’t receive any major scholarship money. Adam has tremendous potential, and I’m certain that if he develops a matching ambition, he could be incredibly successful.
Oh, and for their final scores? They ended up almost identical. That’s right. Mike, the kid with very regular intelligence but a great work ethic ended up with about the same score as Adam, a kid with enough intelligence to do anything he wanted to do.
As a tutor, I love to tell stories like Mike’s. Part of me wants to take a big chunk of the credit for his incredible improvement. That wouldn’t be accurate, though. I gave Mike the tools and opportunity, but his making the most of the opportunity was his own doing. Ultimately, students have to capitalize on the opportunities in front of them. Adam’s story isn’t done being written yet, and I enjoyed working with him. I was open and honest with him about the challenges he needed to overcome, and my hope is that he’s overcome some of them as he’s matured.
Their stories are both cautionary and inspirational. These themes extend far beyond college prep, and history is littered with tremendously talented people who lacked the traits needed to make the most of their talent. Fortunately, it’s also full of people who did amazing things with only moderate talent. Success has a lot of requirements, and regardless of what a person brings to the table, hard work is almost always necessary.
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