A Passport To The Future

Most people know the quote from Malcolm X “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” However, the rare first part of the quote is no less profound.

The full quote is “Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.”

The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same

The education quote is from a speech Malcolm X gave on June 28, 1964. Despite the age of the statement, the words remain exactingly correct today. Fifty-four years later, education continues to be the critical aspect for any person to enjoy their human rights, to embrace our individual and collective identities, to learn to fully respect ourselves so that we might have complete respect for humanity, and to develop a fierce urgency to prepare today for our role of conquering an uncertain tomorrow.

I wasn’t born when Malcolm X gave the speech. Surprising I know. I was born a year, or to be precise one-year and seventeen days afterward. Go ahead and say it, I know I’m old. Regardless of my maturity, I do not believe it would be a stretch to say that the spirit of Malcolm X’s quote was a guiding principle in how my parents raised me and how we backward designed my son’s life.

Not wanting to shortchange my son’s humanity I’ve always understood the need to do my part as his father. My job which I further recognize in Malcolm X’s quote was to remove anything or anyone who might pose as a potential obstruction to my son’s enjoyment of the unalienable Rights endowed to him by the Creator. As such, I maintain that the most critical role of a parent is to make sure our children have their passport to the future.

The Past as A Guide to The Future

So how do you make sure your child has a passport for the future especially in a period where tomorrow feels more uncertain than ever? If your child has a passport do you know if the passport is real or fake, does it have an expiration date, is it local, national, or global? Moreover, how do you prepare children for tomorrow’s jobs that don’t exist today?

The answers are intuitively simple. You keep reading The Raising Supaman Project. Over the course of the next several months, I’m going to continue to share with you the best practiced and proven strategies to think about times to come and prepare for tomorrow. For now, let’s say that answer to all the questions begins with studying the past while imagining the future.

Head of the Class

As in the case of the young man wants to go to Yale, if he wants Yale to be in his future, he needs to start by examining Yale’s past. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to be a history major or look that far in the rearview mirror; he merely needs to review Yale’s last admitted class.

Yale University is one of the most selective colleges and universities in the world. According to U.S. News & World Report, Yale’s 2017 Fall acceptance rate was 7%. Per the Yale College Class of 2021 First-Year Class Profile, only 4.7% (1,579) of the total applicants (32,900) were accepted and enrolled.

For those of you who don’t like math, I’ll make it simple. A whole lot of people applied to Yale, but only a few got in. The odds are very much against ever being admitted to Yale.

Notwithstanding that there are no guarantees for acceptance and that admission to Yale looks seemingly impossible, there are helpful things to be gleaned from the First-Year Class Profile. Among the points to be examined are the following:

• High school rank – 96% of Yale’s students ranked in the top 10% of their graduating class
• SAT scores – At Yale students averaged 749 in Reading & Writing and 755 in Math (SAT total 1,504; max. score 1,600)
• ACT score – Yale students have an ACT Composite score of 33 (max. score 36)

Whether you like math or not, I trust you can discern that being well prepared academically is a precursor to attending a selective university like Yale. What may not appear as apparent from the figures is that being considered a legitimate applicant (mirroring the last admitted class profile) begins long before high school.

Words To The Wise Parent

A word to any parent who wants their child to attend a selective university like Yale, the type of educational development that enhances your child’s odds starts well before high school and extends far beyond school grounds. Doing the mundane things every other parent is doing and outsourcing the care of your child to a school every day isn’t nearly enough. Unless your child is a university legacy, your annual income and net worth are in the top 10%; your child will likely need an educational strategy just like the young man who hopes to attend Yale.

Your strategy must include doing what only 4.7% of parents are willing to do. Increase your child’s odds by doing things other parents won’t do from the very beginning such as starting your child’s educational preparation from as early as conception. Conversely, if your child is already out of the womb, begin a process to measure your child’s educational outcomes right now against your dream school’s acceptance benchmarks.

If you have no idea how to design an educational plan backward or do any of the stuff I’ve described so far, don’t worry that’s why I’m here. Continue reading. Ask questions. Keep showing up with me each week. I guarantee you that I can show and tell where you can find the tools, techniques, and strategies to extrapolate your children’s educational results from today against your dream university’s requirements and help you prepare your child for the so-called unknown occupational benchmarks of tomorrow.

SECRET SAUCE

That’s it for now. Stay tuned because next time, I’m going to share the Secret Sauce with you – two words (maybe three words) that sum what it takes to find the right college, to meet the profile of your dream school, and to prepare for life in general. 

Speaking of organized let me leave you with this last thought. Prepared parents would prefer knowing now rather than later if a child is on or off course. Mom and dad, please be proactive so that your child not only gets to attend Yale but more importantly so that they receive their passport to the future!

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Does your child have their passport to the future? Do you know if the passport is fake or real? Are you confident that your child won’t say to you one day soon that you failed them because their aspirations far exceed your daily preparation?