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Students Head to Test-Taking Camp With Eyes on Seat in Coveted City Schools
Hundreds of middle schoolers flocked to their first day of camp in Brooklyn this week without the usual backpacks full of bathing suits and sunscreen. Instead they lugged notebooks and pencils to small, sometimes windowless classrooms at A+ Academy, a test-prep center where they will spend seven weeks studying for the ultracompetitive exam that determines whether they get a seat at New York City’s Stuyvesant High School and seven other coveted public high schools.
Lazy days of summer? Not for these students gunning for a make-or-break exam
Lulu Zhou, whose family started the A+ Academy more than 20 years ago, said demand is high in these communities because of a long tradition of tutoring. "They come from a culture where this is the norm," she explained. "They come from a culture where this is something that everybody goes to."
A Summer of Test Prep Means More Asians in the City's Elite Schools
Students at the A+ Academy tutoring center in Brooklyn, where daily summer classes help them prep for the SHSAT
The Problem with NYC High-School Admissions? It’s not Just the Test
This is A+ Academy, one of many weekend and late afternoon schools that have sprouted up in Asian communities around New York City. Lulu Zhou, whose family started A+, says it provides “supplemental education,” not test prep. But such schools are widely viewed as one reason so many Asians gain admission to specialized high schools, such as Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science.
Immigrants View Test Prep as a Ticket to Better Future
Kenn Jiang, a 10-year-old in the Bronx, takes subways for almost two hours on Saturday mornings to come to a Brooklyn tutoring center that caters to the children of immigrants eager to have them ace standardized tests.
His single mother, who cleans offices, says she expects to spend about a quarter of her pay on his tutoring, a staple on most Saturdays during the school year and for six weeks in the summer. She said through an interpreter that she wants to “make sure he has a good foundation.”