Stumped by a test or a challenge? Throw Spaghetti Against the Wall!

My son was worried about an essay test he had to take in his 9^th grade history class. “What if I didn’t study the right things?” he asked me.

We were standing in the parking lot in front of the school.  It was too early in the morning to give a well-reasoned answer – and too late for Kurt to do any additional prep.  I blurted out some advice, which is based on the theory that it’s better to focus on what you know rather than what you don’t know.  “Throw spaghetti against the wall!” I said, in as cheerful a voice as I could muster.  “If the question asks for 2 names or dates or wars, and you don’t know both answers, write down what you do know about the situation or time period. Maybe Dr. Piercy will see that you know the subject, and give you credit.”

Just then my friend Tina Steck, another 9^th grade mom who is an attorney who once worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., walked up with her son.  “I’m telling Kurt to use the ‘throw spaghetti at the wall’ technique to take Dr. Piercy’s history test,” I told her.

Tina laughed and rolled her eyes.  “Hah!” she laughed, “the ‘throw spaghetti against the wall’ technique got me through law school,” she told the boys.  Suddenly they were all ears. 

Lenny Toups, another mom and an actual “Rocket Scientist” (an MIT engineer and consultant at Raytheon), walked up to us with her son Jason.  We explained what we were advising the kids.

“Oh yes!” Lenny said seriously. “One time I went into a physics test at MIT,” Lenny said, “and when I looked at the test, I realized I had studied entirely the wrong thing.  I didn’t know how to get the answer and there was only one huge question on the test.  I was dead.  So after I took 10 minutes to take deep breaths to calm down, I decided to write down everything I knew.  I wrote down the information that was given, and the safe assumptions, and basic physics laws.  I actually had a substantial amount of information.  Then I gave some proposed ways of solving the problem.  I got a decent grade on that test!  SO yeah, “Throw Spaghetti Against the Wall and See what Sticks!” 

The boys were sold.  They embraced the technique and excelled.  It’s been 8 years since that day, and my son still sometimes throws spaghetti against the wall.  The moral of the story?  You know more than you think you do.

If You Want To Be Recruited – Get Good Grades!

No matter where you want to go to college and play your sport, good grades can improve your chances at getting recruited.  If you are the Number One Top-Ranked recruit in the country, or a coach’s very top number one recruit, he/she may be able to ask admissions to take a second and third look at admitting you - even if you have a lower than required GPA.  But if you’re not that top recruit, let’s say you’re number five on his list of ten; a great GPA might help you jump in front of other applicants.

Understand that every point in your GPA opens more doors – for example going from a 3.3 to a 3.5 cumulative GPA may make the difference between going to your ‘safety’ college and getting into your dream school. Grades count starting in 9^th grade, and semester grades count – not just year-end final grades.  I’ve had parents misunderstand that, and focus exclusively on year-end grades only to find that their student’s cumulative GPA was lower than they thought because of low mid-term or mid-year grades.

If your dream is to study and play your sport at a Division I Athletic and Academic powerhouse, your high school grades and your cumulative grade point can quickly put you on, or yank you off a coach’s list of recruits.   For example, if you want to go to an Ivy League school and play your sport, the coach there has a pretty clear idea what GPA a prospective student/athlete needs to get through admissions.  Every college admissions process is unique, and every coach/sport at a school has a variable amount of “clout” with admissions.  As soon as the coach sees your GPA and your standardized test scores, he/she will immediately get a feel for your chances of attending that college.

If, early in the process, for example during your sophomore year, you are lucky enough to get a quick meeting with a coach on a college campus when you visit, you might ask the coach “what can I do to enhance my chances of going to this college?” The coach at a top academic college is going to say, “Keep your grades up.” I’ve heard coaches say this to young student athletes many times.   

Set yourself up for success. Study hard, take challenging classes, and try to get A’s.  It can only help you in the recruiting process and college admissions.

The Rough-and-Tumble World of College Student Internships

I’m re-reading Wendy Mogel’s “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee,” and thinking about the value of rejection and denial as my college student kids try to get summer internships.  Maybe I over-protected them for 19 years and “enabled” them – helping them accomplish every goal they’ve set in both academics and athletics.  Now they’re venturing into the working world, having to apply, pursue, and interview for jobs on their own. I want them to reach into their reserves of determination and assertiveness, and show me that they have the initiative and motivation to scramble and get an interview.  

They both have peers at college who are receiving zero guidance from parents and yet have secured summer jobs in interesting fields. So I’m pulling back, concerned that as long as I guide them through every step, they’ll never acquire the skill to do it themselves.  The other day I said to my son, “Buddy, this is the School of Hard Knocks, and you’re enrolled!”  I’ve switched from lovingly putting on life jackets to throwing them into the job market yelling, “Sink or Swim!” 

My mom picked potatoes in Idaho.  She was a telephone operator.  Yes, she graduated from college, but she always knew she had to work, and she told us from the beginning that we had to have a “marketable skill” to earn a living.  As a kid growing up in Washington State, I picked blueberries, green beans, apples and peaches in the summers.  One summer my mom started a strawberry picking company and we would all pile in a truck and go to the strawberry fields.  At the end of the summer we each got a $5 bonus. My brother, sister and I tell stories of working together one summer at Ray’s Spudnut shop that make everyone laugh.  I think we make it sound like it was more fun than it was.

When my son finished 9^th grade, I volunteered him as a counselor’s assistant in our school’s 6 week summer program.  He said, “You farmed me out!”  I said, “That’s right.”  In the end he liked it a lot – and worked there for pay the following 2 summers.  He is now a sophomore in college and has applied for 7 internships in New York, and has already been “denied” for 4 of them.  These are very competitive, highly sought-after internships that probably go to rising seniors more often than rising juniors as he is.  I know he has learned that he should have started this process earlier, and sent out more resumes than he did.  Still - how much of a “blessing” are these doggoned skinned knees? How much rejection can he absorb before he becomes totally discouraged? How long can I watch from the sidelines before I step back into the process?

I’m now thinking that a summer welding at our family’s chair factory in Hanover, PA might be the “blessing” he needs.  I’ll farm him out.

Seeing College Students Overwhelmed by Stress Makes me Think Twice about College Admission Goals

This is the start of the college admission season when High School Seniors who’ve applied to colleges for regular admission (as opposed to early admission,) or those who were deferred in early admission, will hear where they’ve been admitted.  And they’ll hear where admission has been denied them.  Those are the words – Admitted, Denied. 

This is also finals week at some colleges on the quarter system.  In the past week, I have learned of two students who have attempted or commited suicide this week. As the mother of two college students I feel so sad for the parents and sad that nobody knew these students were stressed to their limit. It’s becoming very clear to me why it’s important to send students to colleges that are a “fit” for them, where they can be challenged but not overwhelmed. 

I admit I was obsessed with and committed to getting my children into a tip top college even before they were born.  I did not go to a tip top college and when I worked in New York I saw the advantages going to a school like that gave my friends.  They were confident in the big city business environment, well-travelled, and they were part of a network of newly graduated students and their parents who were working in New York corporations.  They had MBAs – I didn’t even know what an “MBA” was. 

How many times, starting when my son was in eighth grade, did I hear our school college counselors and faculty advise parents, “There is a right school for every student,” and “It will all work out fine,” and “Your child will get into a school where he/she can thrive.”  I didn’t believe a word of it.  I thought they were trying to get me to not be so ambitious and competitive, not to pressure my children, not to have high expectations for my family.

I sent my kids to an academically challenging K-12 school starting when they were in Kindergarten.  I expected them to work hard, be in the top of their class, get A’s, and do well in every extra-curricular activity.  When they chose a sport to specialize in, I was proud that both of them worked harder than anyone and excelled in their sport.  I made them study for the SAT all summer between sophomore and junior years, taking monitored practice tests over and over so they could get an excellent score. I now have two college students at excellent schools, and they are doing very well.  But I have a new perspective. 

I’ve recently had a chance to talk with my children and many of their friends about college life. And guess what?  College is hard everywhere!  The classes in college are all difficult. There are brilliant students taking those classes wherever you go, and sometimes there is NO curve.  College students all have to manage their time well, plan ahead, go to every class, meet with the TA if they need help.  Many college students (mine included) are coming from high schools where they were Top Dog and now they’re NOBODY - just another student in a difficult Chemistry class.  College students have to find the confidence to keep studying even when they get bad grades, when they haven’t slept because the dorm is noisy, when they’re sick, and when they’re discouraged because they couldn’t complete the Econ problem set, or they got a C on the Statistics mid-term.  I understand how college students can buckle under the pressure if they’re not where they should be.

Now I see that there are many “tip top” colleges, and that college admissions officers are looking for students who have developed a set of study skills and accomplishments that will allow them to thrive at their particular college.  They want a “match” of the student’s abilities and interests with the college’s environment and challenges.  They want students to be happy, make lots of friends, find new interests, and graduate.  It might seem like our high school counselors, the college admissions officers, and ambitious parents are working at cross purposes, but really we’re not.  We are all trying to develop confident, successful young adults – wherever they go.

Thinking about Confidence - and how athletes build and keep their self-confidence

Stanford Website Heading:  “… Derrick ran two of the most courageous races in recent memory, attacking Lelang with everything he had.”

Saturday’s NCAA Men’s 5K Indoor Track Championship race was a lesson in courage, poise, and confidence.  And it wasn’t the winner who taught us the lesson. 

Entered in the NCAA 5K Friday night, Lawi Lalang from Arizona had a seed time of 13:08, Stephen Sambu of Arizona had 13:13, Leonard Korir of Iona last year’s winner had 13:19.54, and Chris Derrick of Stanford 13:19.58 the fourth fastest going into the finals.  But Derrick had LaLang in his sights, after coming in second to LaLang by 3 seconds at NCAA regional cross country championships at Stanford in November.  

Derrick felt like he had done all the training that was appropriate for him, and apparently he had a plan.  If you’re not a runner, let me explain the strategy here.  A 5K is 3.1 miles which is a long time to run at breakneck speed.  If you know that your biggest competitor has a famous “kick” - that is, he can just put on the afterburners and sprint with 200 meters to go - it is dangerous to be tied with him at that point. 

Derrick’s plan was to push the pace and take the lead before LaLang kicked, and with 400 to go (a long way!) he sped up to distance himself from LaLang.  They traded the lead, running a very fast race, and LaLang finished .77 seconds in front of Derrick.  

Again, on Saturday, the two of them battled it out again.  This time LaLang finished only .17 seconds in front of Derrick.  And when the weekend was over, Derrick had run 2 of the fastest races of his career.

I am a runner, have run many races on an indoor track, and my daughter Jaye is a track runner.  We both know what it takes to formulate that race strategy, believe we can execute the plan, think about it all week as we prepare for and travel to the race, and put our toe on the starting line still confident in our ability to accomplish our goal.  There are so many opportunities for self doubt. 

We runners obsess over what we’ve eaten all week, whether we’ve stretched enough, double knotted our shoes so they don’t untie. Jaye and I learned from Sports Psychologist Michael Gervais how to “breathe” ourselves down from a Very Nervous 10 to a Moderately Nervous 7 for optimal performance.  Coach and CAL All-American Kirsten O’Hara Leetch, tells my daughter, “When you put your toe on the line, just know that you have done all the work you need to do to execute your plan and win.” 

I watched Chris Derrick run that 5K, knowing, appreciating and admiring everything it took for him to make that gutsy move.  And I will be cheering for him when he comes in first next time.