The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins

The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids Reviews

• 
  Ruby Granger

  Well... This was possibly one of the best books I have ever read. You know that I am stingy with my 5-star book ratings but this one was sorely deserved. The book is non-fiction, following the stories of several high schoolers and providing a commentary on the US education system and the beginning of the Age of the Comparison. It was written around 2008 and so the statistics are obviously outdated but I think one of the most shocking things is that, despite Robbins's clear and factual critique, the same trend in student anxiety continues. This in itself is a cause for concern. Why are we not doing more to investigate and improve student well-being and the corruptness of much of the system?
  
  Not only is this factually interesting, however, but also personally enlightening. I would identify as an overachiever myself (having been called this by multiple people) and I did find myself relating intensely to many of the characters interviewed by Robbins. This was especially powerful, I think, because she wrote it as a story, meaning that there was substance, suspense and progression in a way which is rarely seen in pieces similar to this. If you are frequently anxious about your grades at school, I would definitely recommend this book to you. If you feel as though you always have to be the best, you should read this.
  
  This has made it into my Top Five.
• 
  Sharon

  Alexandra Robbins' The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids is a poignant, non-fiction work that touches upon the modern competitive education system, which has seemingly gone out of control. Rather than earning grades for learning, students are obtaining artificial grades through cheating, and even resorting to non-prescribed medications to facilitate their study habits in order to get into their dream college. During Alexandra's 10-year high school reunion, she gathers a group of her friends' high school experiences and puts them in her book. It includes stereotypes such as the overachieving scholar, the popular athlete, those who are can never seem to fulfill their parents' expectations, and others who struggle to put on a flawless and well-rounded facade. These high school students engage themselves in numerous extracurricular activities, and also manage to balance seventeen AP classes throughout high school - all in attempt to get into their dream college.
  
  The Overachievers is an enticing story which combines the conflicts of both man vs. society and man vs. himself. For example, Julie, a young student who portrays the typical overachieving scholar, gives her best effort to do extraordinarily well in school to get into her dream college, Stanford. She faces fierce competition among the other overachievers at school, and feels the need to maintain their perfect impressions of her. On the other hand, one of Julie's peers, AP Frank, feels pressured to fulfill his mother's harsh expectations. He is important to the novel because he shows that the lack of time and energy required to live up to these expectations, both shared by the students and their parents, is a product of the pressure of trying to live up to societal standards. Other overachievers compete to maintain a meticulous academic record in order to be accepted into a prestigious university. Each student invests hours of his or her personal time studying for each test, which slowly wears away at the character's sanity as they try to make room for a social life as well. With every club activity and study session he or she participates in, the student begins to feel the stress as they watch his/her time and energy dwindle to almost nothing. In retrospect, the driving force behind each character's actions is in response to the pressure and stress that acts as a constant motif throughout the novel. Julie and AP Frank are merely a few examples of the victims who suffer from the excruciating standards set by society and their parents in a desperate attempt to be accepted into an ideal college institution. College acts as the overpowering symbol of success that drives each character into a dismal and debilitating whirlwind of stress. However, Robbins exhibits a crucial theme in her book: Getting into a prestigious university does not determine whether one will be successful or not. She is reminding all high school students who constantly feel anxiety of getting into a name-brand college that school should be a place for learning - not a place for competing to be "number one."
  
  Overall, The Overachievers is a compelling book that I was recommended to read in English class. It attracted me because I was able to relate to the high school experience in the story. This book has helped me constantly remind myself that grades are not an accurate judgment of what the potential an average student like I may have, and that school is just an environment to learn and grow. Robbins' diary-style writing makes the book feel a lot more personal, as if the reader were reading a friend's journal about the everyday stress from school. In between entries, Robbins intervenes and provides startling statistics on the various aspects of modern education, such as kids resorting to drugs to attain better performance in school and suicide rates. She also gives her opinion of what she thinks of the current education system - bad and inefficient. I would definitely recommend this book to all high school students today (especially juniors and seniors) who are looking for an easy-to-read book to relate to. Robbins' accessible style of writing keeps the audience captivated to want to continue reading on. The Overachievers is by far one of my favorite books - earning a rating of five out of five stars.
• 
  sara

  one of the most refreshing books i’ve read in awhile.
  
  when i logged onto good ol goodreads, the quote on the loading screen said “you were wild once; don’t let them tame you.” and honestly that’s pretty appropriate. just finished this book and so many thoughts running around my mind.
  
  you could laugh and say it’s so on-brand that i read a book about overachievers, but it’s crazy because this book is about so much more. it’s not only about how much our education system SUCKS, but it’s about how overworking kids can lead to their liberty being stolen from them. it’s straight up about toxicity. maybe that toxicity comes from perfectionists themselves, much like myself, but it also comes from parents, teachers, a school who denies average-achieving students a decent chance at success.
  
  it’s about kids who are college board’s pets and spend their whole high school career doing school and all 30 aps and college prep, and how these kids go to college and feel so stuck. they feel like their minds are numb, and they don’t find joy in school. when i read this book, i realized there’s a very big difference between being an overachiever and being a high achiever. this book is so powerful and made me grateful that im simply high achieving, and i have that much-needed balance in my life that allows me to be HAPPY and well-rounded. health is so important.
  
  the structure of this book is really satisfying and i loved following the stories of specific characters. that’s what sets apart this nonfiction book from others that i’ve read i think. it makes the concepts that robbins talks about so much more real when you read about an actual person in a scenario. it’s a Long book and i felt like it could’ve been shorter for sure. i bet there was just too much to say.
  
  high school is important, but it’s not worth losing life over. it shouldn’t have to hurt to be high achieving and wanting success. our world is creating robots in the form of sleep-deprived kids and that’s intolerable. this book is such a good wake up call to encourage students to live their LIFE, aside from school.
  
• 
  Alec

  A Year Later....
  
  It's close to the end of my senior year of high school, it's about time for me to really decide where I want to go, and it's been a year since I read The Overachievers -- yet this book is still sticking in my head. Of all the books that I've read, this is probably one of the most important. Honestly, I don't quite know why because it just gets me so righteously angry whenever I think about my own college application experiences in terms of this book -- curse the Early Decision admission track and curse Vanderbilt for having not one but TWO Early Decision tracks instead of an Early Action one -- but this book was still so relevant to me. I'm so glad that I picked this to read in English my junior year.
  
  Actual Review
  
  I had to read The Overachievers for my AP English class. We were given a list of seventeen books and were told to choose which book we wanted to read the most. I chose this book because, being what my friends call an overachiever, I wanted to read about myself.
  
  The book wasn't quite like that though: Alexandra Robbins, the author, followed several high school- to college-age students who are considered overachievers by their peers. Reading about these people made me ever grateful for one reason: I'm not an overachiever like these students.
  
  My gosh, talk about stress! This book centers on the kind of people who would kill themselves if they didn't get into Harvard or would curl into a ball and flood Earth with their tears if they got a dreaded B. This book is so good because not only does Robbins discuss the overachiever culture and its causes and effects but also how to successfully dismantle this culture. She goes into detail about how students' stress and pressure come from multiple sources -- e.g. class rank, parental involvement/helicopter parenting, college rankings, AP class and extracurricular overload -- and how everyone (students, parents, counselors, even colleges) can contribute to lessen the burden.
  
  I would highly recommend this book to anyone who knows or who is an overachiever because this book, despite being several years old, rings as true as ever.
• 
  Betsy

  When I read this after college, I felt like I was being transported back to high school. Not only did I know the kinds of kids she was describing - I WAS one of those kids. As a somewhat adult, it's hard to imagine how I could ever pull off everything I did in high school now. I can barely make it through the workday sometimes, how did I go to school, do homework, work at my job and play competitive sports and not simply die of exhaustion? The thought makes me crazy.
  
  This was a great read for someone who had been there, but I also would recommend it to anyone considering having kids or working in the school system. It gives great insight to the difference between motivation and pressure, and reminds you of what it's really like to be back in high school.
• 
  Alexandra Robbins

  My favorite of my books!
• 
  Agnes

  As riveting as non-fiction gets, Robbins really makes it hard for the reader not to be burning to know how the stories of her profilees turn out. In 2004-2005, Robbins followed the lives of several high-achieving juniors and seniors at Walt Whitman high school in the DC suburb of Montgomery County, one of the most competitive public high schools in the country (and one graduate, who was a freshman at Harvard). The profiles and struggles of these overachievers are fascinating and deeply resonated with me, who graduated high school just five years before - but how much the world of education changed in those five years was truly fascinating. Robbins includes an impressive set of statistics and educational policy research sandwiched between the stories that hit all the highlights of the achievement and testing-oriented downfalls of the system that were first being uncovered in the mid-2000s. An excellent cautionary tale against high-pressure educational environments, I only wish the book were more recent! I’m sure the world has shifted again in the 16 years since this was published and I desperately wish she had written a follow-up. If anyone has suggestions for current materials on the high-pressure world of the college application game (aside from the fact that around here, what I hear is that everyone still hires a private college consultant and if you haven’t engaged one by your kid’s sophomore year, you’re too late - this was said to me at a party this fall), I’m all ears. I would also dearly love to know how the kids profiled in the book are doing now. Did their efforts pay off? Did they get what they needed (as opposed to what they thought they wanted) out of college? Are they happy? Per Instagram, Robbins has stepped in as a 3rd grade teacher in a local elementary school (I believe in Potomac) this year due to the teacher shortage. Maybe we’ll see more from her on the education front after this. To be clear, this book is primarily about kids in very privileged circumstances - with a few interviews and anecdotes related from other socioeconomic circles and parts of the country. It would be really interesting to see her take on high-achieving kids in poor neighborhoods and see her flesh out the picture.
• 
  Kayla

  i genuinely liked this book--which surprised me. i'm not a non-fiction reader, but it's quite easy to get wrapped up in our crew of student's lives. the only things i didn't particularly enjoy were the authors interjections, as i felt they were too long, but that might be because where Robbin succeeds in creatively telling the students story's, she fails at keeping up the momentum in her own sections. A few of them here and there interested me, but not enough of them for me to ignore their (somewhat) negative impact on the book overall.
  Overall, this book was a good way of digesting the over competitive nature of schools today, while also (especially as a teen) empathizing with the students and further understand your own feelings toward school.
• 
  negin

  yk what. i actually really enjoyed this book so i’m gonna add it to my yearly goal. this book was actually so fun to read and i was so invested in their lives. #teamjulie tho when it comes to derek
• 
  Matthew Tsvetkov

  The Overachievers: Secret Lives of Driven Kids, gets a 2.5 out of 5 stars from me (although for the sake of the Goodreads website I gave the book a 2). The book had a strong, interesting opening. However, when I reached the halfway point I was really only interested in reading about the characters for a reason I couldn't understand. About 250 pages into the book I discovered that my big problem with the book was that I felt like I was being fed the same information in every section that was not about the kids Robbins was following, making the book repetitive and uninteresting for me in the long run.
• 
  Sofia

  Took a heck of a long time to finish but what an inspiring read that changed the way I think about all types of education and how we as a society view achievements and brand names. I loved how the author interviewed REAL students from all types of backgrounds and socioeconomic levels. I heavily related to the mindset of the overachiever and the blindness that comes with constantly wanting to be the best at everything and the damage it can cause as a growing adult trying to find an identity beyond your resume and school. Loved this book and would recommend to anyone who likes a mix of investigative analysis and random teen drama in a non-fiction.
• 
  Jill

  This book represents a very small percentage of American teenagers… fun read and while the story is almost 20’years old I still see some of these traits and attributes in my students. Set in a time before everyone owned a cell phone and AOL AIM was king…
• 
  Maggie

  This book literally killed me and brought me back to life.
  
  The Overachievers is by the same author that wrote The Nurses, if you remember me reading that. They both were really interesting but well-written examinations of a specific industry, maybe? Anyway, this follows a group of students from Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD. All of that is not really relevant unless you know me IRL, because then you'd know that I'm also from the DC Metropolitan area which just made this book that much more relevant for me.
  
  Also, I'm a junior in high school. This book literally terrified me. I stress-cried within the first third of the book. For me, this book represented my future, and really freaked me out.
  
  But I think I judged it a little too early. The real reason that this book freaked me out so much is that I don't really compare to the main characters. I've always thought of myself as an overachiever too, but I'm only taking one AP course this year, I'm nowhere near a 5.0 GPA (is that real?? because wtf) and my school doesn't have class rank for me to worry about. Oh also, there was a global pandemic that caused me to take 3 semesters of my high school career online.
  
  Anyway, the crazy statistics that the author threw out in the beginning of the book freaked me out. But eventually, it came around full circle: the author examined the true relevance of each of these overachieving aspects, and posed solutions to remedy the adverse effects that they have on students' lives.
  
  Another interesting part of this book was the way that the author talked about overachiever parenting. Like, parents who go crazy for their kids grades, schedules, college prospects, etc. Neither of my parents are like that (neither of them had access to AP courses and I don't think they really get what they are), but I went to a magnet school thingy in elementary school with all of these rich kids, and some of their parents were putting them in bilingual seminars and 12-hr per week sports. This book made me decide that I will NOT be like that.
  
  This cemented my love for Alexandra Robbins' writing. However, this book was written in like, 2009, and I can see how her books improved over time. This book is over 400 pages and really doesn't need to be.
  
  Anyway, this book was kinda life changing besties. It also caused like 4 crises for me this week.
• 
  Judy

  The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids, a nonfiction work by Alexandra Robbins, is a book I chose to read because it was a requirement for our English Honors class. Students usually groan at the thought of reading a book because it is a school requirement, but I found The Overachievers to be quite an interesting read. In it, Robbins traces the thoughts and lives of several overachieving students, namely juniors and seniors, from Whitman High School located in Bethesda, Maryland, who face various dilemmas that range from being emotional and mental to physical. Most of these problems have been acquired through stress from the rigorous classes and extracurricular activities they take on, which are directly correlated to admissions into top tier universities. The desire to be accepted into the most prestigious colleges of the nation is derived from either the students’ ambition to become successful in life or from parental pressure.
  
  I found the central conflict in the novel to be man vs. man. The whole overachieving system, according to Robbins, originates from the ambitions of people to come out at the top; for people to be recognized publicly as the number one in whatever they encounter. But since there are only a handful of number one positions open, everyone scrambles wildly to grasp that title, often engaging in unethical behavior just to achieve it. Dishonesty is a major motif of the book; students guiltlessly use it to satisfy their own or their parents’ ambitions, which usually constitutes of achieving the highest marks possible, whether it be in academics or in sports. Some students, or parents even, go so far as to attempt to sabotage others’ chances for so-called “success.” Consequently, a student’s intellect can’t be judged based on the grades that he or she receives in school. Another result of this recurring dishonesty is that being successful in today’s overachieving society is no longer dependent upon an individual’s genuine hunger for knowledge and being able to fulfill that hunger by learning well purely for personal benefit. Therefore, the theme that I gathered from this book is that the concerns of overachieving students or their parents to become “successful” by today’s societal standards will often hinder their true desires. An example in the book is AP Frank, a graduate of Whitman High School, whose overbearing mother doesn’t take into account her son’s hopes for his own future. I believe that parents like that thrust a life upon their own children that they wish they had; thus, children are not really viewed as other, separate human beings, but rather symbolize a second chance at life.
  
  Robbins writes the book in a documentary style, often interrupting the stories of the students’ lives with her own commentary and carefully researched statistics, as well as comments from students from other schools around the United States. A reader might also get the impression that the novel is a compilation of third-person diary entries, with Robbins providing researched statistics that are directly related to the events of the students’ lives. What really sets The Overachievers aside from other typical research projects is the emotion and passion that Robbins puts into the subject. For example, it is evident from her writing style that she holds distaste for the No Child Left Behind Act, which she believes contributes to the stressful environment that schools have become.
  
  The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids is a book I would definitely recommend to all the overachievers in America, especially the children under age twelve who are currently being pressured by their parents to learn material far beyond the typical level of learning at their age. Since the novel is quite easy to read, I mainly recommend it to young learners, because children of younger ages have the tendency to more loyally obey their parents’ wishes, no matter how strenuous. And eventually, they grow into the habit of acting accordingly with the intentions of their parents. Although reading this book might prove to be a disillusioning experience, I believe it to be better that children know in advance what kind of society they are growing up in. This novel is also a good read for high school students, who can connect to the overachievers on a personal level.
• 
  melina

  This book was a wild ride. In my AP Language and Composition we had an assignment that involved choosing a nonfiction book to read. We got a huge list of books to choose from, but The Overachievers was one that really caught my attention because so many people have called me that throughout my life. The characters in this book are so similar to my classmates and to me that at times I had to put it down and take a break. It was actually scary how much I could relate to what the characters were going through, there were times that it actually felt like my own life was being written about. In the book there were kids who were taking a million AP Classes and a million extra circulars and who would get home tragically late only to have to stay up late to finish their homework, something I've gone through throughout my entire high school career. All the characters who were introduced were people who I could find at least one thing in common with. This book was amazing and very eye opening because it let me see how unhealthy this lifestyle really is and how the fact that I didn't see before is worrying.
• 
  Steph Lovelady

  My son, a high school junior in a magnet humanities program, was assigned to read this book for his AP English class. I read it along with him. While I was somewhat bitter about my overworked, high-achieving high school student having to read 400+ page book about how high-achieving high school students are overworked on top of everything else he has to do, I did enjoy it. It's highly readable and relatable, both as someone who went to what was a fairly competitive high school in the 80s (though competition at top high schools seems to have gotten worse) and as a current high school parent. These kids represent extreme cases in terms of achievement and stress; they are not typical of your average high school student in the U.S. or even at Walt Whitman High school in Bethesda, Maryland, where it's set, but those extremes are illuminating nonetheless. We struggle for balance in our family and don't always find it, even with a kid who does much less than these kids. It really is hard to know how to best support kids in this high-pressure environment. I hope it gives him some perspective.
• 
  Melissa (Way Behind Again!)

  High school isn't what it used to be. The competition is fierce for grades, class rank, activities, SAT scores, AP Classes and recommendations. Alexandra Robbins has done an extensive amount of research into the lives of high achievers - those kids whose goal is to get into a top college, and who will do just about anything to get there.
  
  This engaging account is made more fascinating because it doesn't just deliver dry research page after page. Ms. Robbins returned to her own high school, Walt Whitman in Bethesda, Maryland and chose ten students she felt represented the college-bound overachiever. Their stories are presented, alternated with statistics and information on subjects such as sports, SAT exams, the U.S. News & World Report college issue, sleep, cheating, and many others.
  
  This information is astounding in many ways. In the back of my mind, I knew many of these things were happening, but I didn't realize the extent, nor did I realize that much of what the students and parents are doing and spending money on never makes much difference. An amazing fact the author states about sports: 'Fewer than 3 percent of high school athletes will play a sport in college, and only one in 13,000 high school athletes will be paid to play professionally.' Only 1.8 percent of high school varsity athletes received scholarships. Contrasted with the literally thousands of dollars and thousands of hours parents and students put into these sports - not for enjoyment most of the time, but on the quest for the scholarship - these statistics should cause us to open our eyes and see what we are doing. Another thing she states in the sports chapter is that 70 percent of children under eighteen who play organized sports will drop out before the age of thirteen due to pressure. This alone should give parents, coaches, teachers, and administrators pause to think.
  
  Unfortunately, the information about sports is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this issue of overachievers. Pressure by parents to create a super student often starts before the children are born, and intensifies thereafter with competitive preschools and kindergarten. These students lack time to sleep, time to do anything enjoyable to them, time to study. They just plain lack time in general. And this shows in their stress levels, which could rival any company CEO's. And again, to what end? To get into a more prestigious college? Research shows that of the top CEOs of major corporations, the majority graduated from lesser-known or state schools.
  
  The Overachievers is an eye-opening treatise that should be required reading for parents, educators, and anyone who has an influence on children. Ms. Robbins' research is well-documented and her writing style is easy to read and follow. This is one of the most compelling books I have read in a long time, and I continue to turn back to it and re-read portions out loud to family and friends.
• 
  Yelim

  I really really hated this book. This was a book about overachievers, and It was quite boring for me. The contents were made of students constantly in stress, because of their academics, It handeled the big problems in the education culture, and I thought that the theme itself was quite interesting. However the book was just too long. You know that the students are having a hard time, they are in stress, but that just goes on for more than half of the book. I understand the big education problems the book handeled, but it wasn't something enjoyable to read. I felt that the book goes on forever, and that may be the reason why I didn't like it so much. There are stuff like "I couldn't get enough of it" "impossible to put down" on the cover. I couldn't relate to that at all.
• 
  Claudia

  I chose this book for our book club, and I'm eager to see what elementary teachers and parents think of this book. I was impressed! Robbins follows several students from one high-achieving school and connects their concerns and struggles with education issues: NCLB, SAT and ACT testing, the whole test-prep industry; recess and the competition for preschool admission; and how schools' schedules are a mismatch to teenagers' sleep patterns. Her commentary is top-notch! I read fiction for character, so I was drawn in by these amazing kids who are trying so hard to juggle their lives, and have a life. I recommend this to anyone who knows a child!
• 
  Jonathan

  The Overachievers, by Alexandra Robbins, follows the lives of various students in their final years of high school (and one entering his freshman year in university). It details the various pressures and troubles brought about by the effort to succeed and be the best in one of the most competitive high schools in America. I enjoyed this book, not only because it sends a much needed message that the pressure to get into a good university is too high and placing too much stress on students across the world, but also because I could relate exactly to what these people were going through. I agree with Robbins' message that in the effort to get ahead, the joy of learning is left by the wayside.
• 
  Lisa

  Robbins' non-fiction reads like a novel. Her characters, real life high school students, tell the story, which Robbins validates with her research, sprinkled between the anecdotes. As the parent of a high school junior who attends a school much like Whitman, I was deeply interested in the subject matter, and as a former school counselor and adjunct professor, I appreciated the thoroughness of Robbins' research. This book should be required reading for high school parents, particularly if their children are college-bound. It's well-written and easy to read, yet it delivers its message clearly and beautifully.
• 
  Lani

  Living in the DC metro area, working in Bethesda (where the school mentioned is located), and having attended an even more intense magnet school in the area less than 5 years before the book was written... This book spoke to me. I can't even PRETEND to guess if this is a universal experience, but I could personally relate to many aspects of the students profiled. What I didn't see in myself, I saw in my classmates.
  
  I hope teachers and parents read this book and understand the pressures that kids put on themselves.
• 
  Jada

  Reading this book as a high school student meant a lot of me nodding my head and saying "Same!" a few times each chapter. The content of the book itself was great, and honestly more people need to read this book because people don't seem to truly get the stress kids are under these days. My only issue was Robbins has this style of writing that to me is a little too verbose. I found myself skipping paragraphs and having to force myself to come back and read them because I just found them boring. However, overall this is a book I would recommend, and I enjoyed reading (most of) it.