by Dr. Drew A. Bennett, Chancellor
Missouri State University-West Plains

The following book review was originally published in the Springfield News-Leader Sep. 13, 2007.

"What High Schools Don't Tell You: 300 + Secrets to Make your Kids Irresistible to Colleges by Senior Year"

Elizabeth Wissner-Gross, Penguin Group, $23.95, 2007

As an educator, I was intrigued by this title. Getting high school students admitted to college is a compelling concern for parents and educators alike. Unfortunately, I found the scope of this book so narrow that it did not measure up to its title. It will not prove very useful to most parents with a teenager thinking about going to college.

Written for college educated parents with significant financial resources who want their children to attend Ivy League schools like Harvard or Yale, Elizabeth Wissner-Gross' basic strategy begins when children enter the eighth grade. At that age, according to the author, parents should begin drilling their kids in high level math and English and start sending them to summer programs that will pad their college application with "good resume items." The author's "secrets" range from the use of buzzwords to advising parents not to talk up selective programs at school, lest the teacher nominate someone other than their kid.

While these strategies may be useful for some, it will not help most of us. Academic extracurricular programs may not be readily available and transportation costs are high. Sending children from southwest Missouri to the Harvard Summer School is not a very practical college preparation strategy. It is not only the distance that makes the author's suggestions difficult to implement, but also the fact that many of the summer programs she suggests are exorbitantly expensive. Finally, high school teachers and counselors can reveal most of the author's so called "secrets," without being successful in increasing the number of high school graduates who attend any college or university.

What would be more helpful to most of us is a book named "What You Should Tell Our High School Students." This book would show us how to tell students that those who get a college degree will earn much more in their lifetime than those who don't. It would also help us inform students about existing programs and institutions that make a college degree achievable for every high school graduate. Programs like A+, which significantly help with college costs, and institutions like Missouri State University-West Plains, which has an open admission policy, make a college degree available, accessible and affordable. All concerned citizens, not just educators, should talk to students and stress that a college degree is an important key to a successful career and that it is entirely within their reach.

Students can take a two year degree earned at Missouri State University-West Plains and go right into the workplace or transfer into a four year college like the Springfield campus of Missouri State University. A degree from Missouri State University-West Plains or other two-year school can be the first step on the higher education ladder --from there students can go as far as their desire will take them.

We don't need to make our kids "irresistible to colleges," as the title of this book suggests. Instead, we need to make college irresistible to our kids.