Elite-ish

On the first day of class, when asked to explain what first came to mind or define “elite,” the first thing that popped into mind was the prep school that my parents had enrolled me in called Elite Academy. That cram school was the bane of my existence during my summer leading up to high school. I had to sit in a room that was the same shade of blue as the antiseptics used in hospitals alongside another thirty other students, predominantly first generation Asian Americans.

Cram schools like these are fairly common in New York City especially among the Asian population. These facilities are mechanical in that their goal is to crank out students with test scores high enough to enroll in Specialized High Schools of New York City and Ivy League schools. I had never seen that many Asian Americans in one place until I walked through the doors of Elite Academy. It was impressive – impressively homogenous.

What was even more impressively homogenous was the high school that I was accepted to. It was considered the second best public high school in the city and prized itself in having the most Nobel prize winning graduates of any school in the country. “Ivy League Machine” became a common phrase I heard the teachers saying. There I found myself one among several hundred Asian American students who had gone through the same cram school system with the same hopes that this school would be a source of social capital for the college application process.

The school fostered an extremely competitive environment, one I could safely say was unhealthy for any young teen. The workload kept students up until well past one in the morning with students skipping meals and cutting sleep to prepare for quizzes. Everything was dependent on grades, from rewards, amount of homework, and even teachers’ salaries.

That school, in relation to most of the schools in NYC and as a public school is considered “elite” based on the test scores and results it produces. Located in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, it was interesting to see students from other, often times more safe, neighborhoods come flocking to this school. Many students from neighboring schools, on the other hand,  expressed interest in wanting to leave the area with their lives depending on it.

But would I call this school “elite”? At most, it felt pseudo-elite. The idea of “elite” gives an air of elegance and untouchability. My educational experience felt more like a sprint for the door and too competitive for me to actually retain any information after the exams were finished. So yes, my peers and I had the test scores and the extracurricular activities to be considered at the top, and maybe if test scores ruled the world we would be going places in life. But after graduation, it became apparent to me that as an Asian American, I would have to learn to translate the so-called “eliteness” from test scores to the standards of eliteness of White America.