English tutor for private high school entrance exam
My daughter will be applying to private high schools and is worried about the timed writing test as part of the application. She’s a pretty good writer but doesn’t have much experience when there’s a really focused question and a time limit. Has anybody used an English writing tutor who is familiar with this test and could give her some direction? Thanks
Jul 9, 2022
Parent Replies
I highly recommend David Drabkin with Active Voice Writing. He is wonderful! https://activevoicewriting.com/
My daughter applied to the private schools and I would like to give you some advice. Your child is heading into high school, they need to be themselves and write the best essay they can at the time. If you want to help with a writing tutor tell them you are doing it to support their eighth grade learning. Having a tutor for the testing might support getting in, but you want a school that wants the whole child. The writing essay is just one part of the admissions process. Grades, interview, and visiting the schools in session. Our experience was that she got into the three schools she applied to (coming from OSA) and in the end the right choice for her was obvious. It was not the one I wanted her to go to, but she is really happy. Good luck and let them lead.
This is a relatively new requirement as it was not there when my kid was applying a few years ago. I am guessing that since there are many people who hired expensive admission consultants to package their kids and even wrote the essays for the kids, the schools put out this requirement to make sure that the essays in the application are really written by the kids. So the goal of this timed writing sample is to be consistent with what you have in the package--writing style, capability, etc. It is probably not meant to be used to judge how excellent that particular piece of writing is. As long as your kid is a reasonably good writer and writes a lot, it is more important to maintain her own style than getting a tutor just for this.