Full name: The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids

Author: Alexandra Robbins Year: 2006 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Non Fiction, Education, Psychology, Parenting Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781401302016 9781401309022 1401302017 140130902X

The bestselling author of Pledged returns with a groundbreaking look at the pressure to achieve faced by America's teens In Pledged, Alexandra Robbins followed four college girls to produce a riveting narrative that read like fiction. Now, in The Overachievers, Robbins uses the same captivating style to explore how our high-stakes educational culture has spiraled out of control. During the year of her ten-year reunion, Robbins goes back to her high school, where she follows heart-tuggingly likeable students including "AP" Frank, who grapples with horrifying parental pressure to succeed; Audrey, whose panicked perfectionism overshadows her life; Sam, who worries his years of overachieving will be wasted if he doesn't attend a name-brand college; Taylor, whose ambition threatens her popular girl status; and The Stealth Overachiever, a mystery junior who flies under the radar. Robbins tackles teen issues such as intense stress, the student and teacher cheating epidemic, sports rage, parental guilt, the black market for study drugs, and a college admissions process so cutthroat that students are driven to suicide and depression because of a B. With a compelling mix of fast-paced narrative and fascinating investigative journalism, The Overachievers aims both to calm the admissions frenzy and to expose its escalating dangers. Similar books: The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley How Children Succeed by Paul Tough Pranklopedia by Julie Winterbottom Very Good Lives by J. K. Rowling In Defense of a Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria A Circle of Children by Mary MacCracken Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder Overwhelmed by Brigid Schulte Hidden America by Jeanne Marie Laskas The Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch A Mind At A Time by Mel Levine Not Much Just Chillin' by Linda Perlstein Notes From a Public Typewriter by Michael Gustafson Congratulations, by the way by George Saunders Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz Tested by Linda Perlstein Dangerous Minds by LouAnne Johnson The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock L. Eide Summerhill by A. S. Neill The Gift of Dyslexia by Ronald D. Davis