The Kids Are Alright

  • Share
  • Read Later

This post isn’t about politics or swine flu or TARP funds or torture–just old-fashioned hometown pride. Right now the most-read article on Time.com is about a Michigan high school senior who notched perfect scores on the SAT, ACT, and PSAT. I’ve been focusing on more depressing education news in my home state recently, so I clicked on the story earlier this evening. And found that the “genius” kid is one of my mom’s former students. 

If memory serves (Mom is off the grid overseas, so I can’t confirm with her), Willa Chen came pretty darn close to a perfect score on the PSAT when she was just in the sixth grade. So it shouldn’t be surprising that she scored this academic hat trick. What is surprising is that by all accounts Willa is no vocab-memorizing automatron but rather a normal, down-to-earth kid with a playful sense of humor. She didn’t spend her summers trapped indoors studying flashcards or hanging out with private tutors or mastering test-taking tricks. She’s just really smart.

Congrats, Willa. Or as the kids say, w00t!