Uni-forberedende SAT-program

Project Rousseau – SAT preparation during the summer holidays
– or how I came to love going to school during my holidays

Walking into the schoolyard at 9 am during the summer break, one is completely taken aback by the silence: the area outside the fence, where, during the school year, people hang out every morning as others arrive, is completely deserted. It almost seems a bit like trespassing when you enter and I thought to myself (not for the first time): what am I doing here? Why did I decide to spend two weeks of my summer holiday in school?

Project Rousseau is a non-profit organisation which aims to help American children with low socioeconomic backgrounds who live in at-risk neighbourhoods with their education after high school and in cooperation with Rysensteen they offer a two-week SAT preparation course at Rysensteen to a group of American high school students as well as Danish student from our ‘gymnasium’. The idea being that both groups need to prepare in order to excel at the SATs and get into good universities – and that the culture exchange is beneficial for both groups.

So sitting there the first day with coffee taken from the teachers’ kitchen, which felt slightly forbidden, we began learning more about how we could realize our secret dream of going to an American Ivy League university, a dream that was only fuelled by the knowledge we gained about the system and its many advantages. One of the most important things we learned was understanding the application process itself. What surprised most of us was the fact that studying and understanding the test didn’t feel like school even though we spent every day from 9 am to 6 pm at Rysensteen. Maybe it was because we were constantly being challenged and made to apply our abilities differently. Also, we didn’t just study non-stop: there was plenty of time for socialising, discussing or simply taking a break. The days really seemed to pass quickly.

Many things were discussed in our group, and it was very interesting to see the cultural differences between Americans and Danes when it came to food, manners, habits, and views on the world in general. In the process, we also learned new things about our own country. For example, we discovered that we Danes are more accustomed to independence and doing things ourselves than many of the Americans are.

Though we had our differences, something will eventually just click when you spend two weeks together. As the programme ended and we had to say goodbye, we parted as brothers and sisters, eager to meet again after fulfilling our dreams. 

Malou Rolin 3t

Alycia, teahcer at some of the summer workshops
This summer, Rysensteen Gymnasium hosted Project Rousseau's first international SAT and college admissions bootcamp! Fourteen Danish students and 7 Project Rousseau students from New York, Chicago, Houston, and Nashville participated in a two-week course and cultural exchange in Copenhagen, Denmark. The programme consisted of intensive SAT prep, college advising, and application completion. Students worked long and hard and saw impressive gains in their SAT scores! It was also an exciting opportunity to broaden their horizons and get to know students from another part of the world.