The summer before 6th grade, we moved from Kentucky to Edinburgh, Indiana. My dad took up a job helping our aunt and uncle run a Waffle House. My dad would eventually go on to work for Cummins, maker of Diesel engines, headquartered in Columbus, Indiana.
The remainder of my primary and secondary education occurred in the Edinburgh Community School District. Edinburgh is a small town of not quite 5,000. It’s most known for its outlet mall and Camp Atterbury, a national guard base that serves as a training center for troops headed into combat overseas.
Coming back to the story of my path to medicine, Edinburgh High School was a crucial stop along the way. One might think growing up in a small school district would be a disadvantage. I was lucky to say it was quite the opposite. I may not have had access to an AP course in every subject, but I had smart and dedicated teachers that were committed to education and success for all of their students.
I wasn’t the only student who had an interest in education in the sciences. We didn’t have a chemistry two or physics course, but our teachers created one for us. They made sure we had calculus to get our math up to par. The only goal was to ensure that we were adequately prepared to excel in our post-secondary education. I’m not sure there are many other schools in the country where you would find teachers who exhibit that sort of dedication to their students!
Perhaps the one thing that I was missing was an early education in standardized test-taking. I always did fine on state exams but didn’t have any teaching to the SAT or ACT – the first important multiple-choice exam required to gain entry into college. Not only are these exams important for entrance, but they can also be the quickest way to earn some much-needed merit monies to pay for a college education.
The most important preparation for standardized tests like the SAT, the ACT, or even board exams is to learn how to answer those specific test questions. My test scores were more than adequate to get into many schools. I got 1020 on the SAT (TWICE – with really no preparation other than the PSAT). Had I completed formal test prep, maybe I could have done better. I took the ACT and got a 32. The SAT score is nothing to write home about, and higher scores very likely could have gained me some more scholarship monies to help pay for college. I didn’t know that there were resources to prepare. I just assumed that the test was something like the state style tests. They are supposed to be tests of your knowledge, not necessarily tests of your test-taking skills. That is definitely only partially true.
If you’re reading this and working on the way to college, make sure you seek out a resource to help with test prep. If paying for prep is challenging, search the internet or talk with a guidance counselor to see what resources are available at a discounted rate or perhaps for free. Look for a resource that provides questions and do all the questions you can get your hands on. Give yourself time to take the test, fail, and then do it again.