Two parts to smart: Is your teen college-ready?

Here’s some unsettling information: Just because your teen can remembermath formulas or the timeline of World War II doesn’t mean they’reready for college. In fact, brain experts will tell you that there areactually two parts to smart – knowledge and IQ – and you needboth of them to get into the top colleges and universities.

So what’s the difference?

Knowledge is information gained from learning, studying and memorizingacademic material, such as historical facts, grammar or mathematical equations.IQ is a measure of intelligence, including things like spatial reasoning,logical ability and relationships. Where once IQ was thought to be a stagnantnumber (e.g. you were born with your IQ), brain researchers now know thatit is simply a measurement of cognitive skills, which can be strengthened.

Cognitive skills are the tools that enable us to do things like:

• focus
• think
• prioritize
• plan
• understand
• visualize
• remember
• create useful associations
• solve problems

“A teenager’s cognitive skill set is made up of several mentalskills, including auditory and visual processing, short- and long-termmemory, comprehension, logic and reasoning, and attention skills,”explains Dr. Ken Gibson, author of “Unlock the Einstein Inside;Applying New Brain Science to Wake Up the Smart in Your Child” (www.unlocktheeinsteininside.com).“Unfortunately, many people believe that kids who have memorizeda lot of academic information – such as facts, figures and formulas– will automatically do well in college because they did well ontheir final exams. The truth is, learning isn’t about how much youknow, but how effectively you process or handle the information you receive.Cognitive skills are the mental mechanisms that process incoming information.By strengthening cognitive skills, you’ll create a stronger learner,which is what’s needed to succeed in college and beyond.”

In fact, IQ scores are sometimes used as predictors of educational achievement. ThePrinceton Review published a study about cognitive skills rankings calculated using anSAT to IQ Estimator. College freshmen who scored in the top 19 percentin terms of cognitive skills among their peers were accepted into statecolleges. Those in the top 9 percent for cognitive skills were acceptedinto private colleges. But only those ranking in the top 0.2 percent wereaccepted into Ivy League universities.

“This really demonstrates the importance of strong mental skillsfor getting into college,” says Tanya Mitchell, Chief Research Officerfor LearningRx, a one-on-one brain training company with 80 centers acrossthe United States. “I think it’s common for parents to believethat if their teen is getting A’s and B’s in high school,that’s probably what they’ll get in college. The truth isthat college is much more difficult and memorizing material from booksjust isn’t going to cut it anymore. Teens need strong cognitiveskills like logic and reasoning, faster processing speed, problem solvingskills and prioritizing in order to not only keep up in college, but toexcel.”

Although Mitchell says that some college prep courses can be helpful, shepoints out that they’re not about strengthening cognitive skills.“Most of them are focused on academic materials and study habits,not strengthening learning skills. Personal brain training can targetthe weak cognitive skills that have been identified with a cognitive skillsassessment.”

”With one-on-one brain training, there’s no focus on specificacademics, “ explains Mitchell. “It’s about increasingthe brain’s connections to think, process and learn faster –not memorize more material.”