Philip, R. (2006), Drugs that enhance student achievement: Good kids making bad decisions. In Engaging ‘tweens and teens: A brain-compatible approach to reaching middle and high school students (pp. 175-194). California: Corwin Press.

“This quickly leads to the discussion of cognitive enhancement for students who are competing for limited space in colleges and universities. Eventually, ambitious parents will start giving mind-enhancing pills to their children, said James McGaugh, the University of California at Irvine neurobiologist. ‘If there is a drug which is safe and effective and not too expensive for enhancing memory in normal adults, why not normal children?’ he said. ‘After all, they’re going to school, and what’s more important than education of the young? Some parents will consider it more important to give their children a little chemical edge than think of the long-term consequences.'”

I chose this passage because it reminded me a lot of the pressure that I felt about taking college entrance exams and their results. I had the opportunity to take both the ACT and SAT more than once. I ended up with high enough scores to receive two scholarships that covered all my expenses. In my group of friends, there was one girl whose mom couldn’t afford to pay for multiple exams. She went to a smaller, lesser known university and had a smaller scholarship. Other classmates got higher scores and received more prestigious scholarships. In high school, we were all equal students, we all had about the same grades.

In university, we had very different paths. My classmates with the highest scores and the best scholarships failed. They had never been unsuccessful before. They didn’t know how to deal with the pressure. Those of us that had not done as well, or already met some kind of major obstacle did much better.

Concerns over smart drugs making testing unfair seem rather trivial to me. The testing system and importance of scores is already unfair. In my experience it does a poor job of predicting students success in college. I think that any concern over smart drugs should be used to point out how unfair and manipulated the system already is and allow space for reform and alternatives to be discussed.