And so private counselors in places as diverse as Chicago, New York City, Sarasota and Bennington who guide juniors and seniors in applying in college, have devised elaborate systems — from color-coded, four-month calendars that mark dozens of deadlines to file boxes that students must take to each session.

Goldberg, Homayoun and other private tutors say boys must learn not only how to organize, but also how to manage their time and even how to study.

Robert Gittings, a sixth grader, has been coming weekly to work with Homayoun since September. He, too, is asked to empty his backpack, and on one visit, cheerfully removed a vast collection of textbooks, binders, workbooks, paperback books and hardcover library books.

Most of the binders were orderly and reasonably neat. But there was a stack of papers from science, nearly an inch thick, that needed to be sorted.

“Do you have homework for tonight?” Homayoun asked. He replied, “We have a work sheet.” But it was not in the homework section of the science binder or in his daily planner.

Then Robert remembered where he put it. From a side pocket of his backpack, he pulled a sheet of paper that had been folded into a tiny rectangle.

Homayoun requires her clients to have a three-ring, loose-leaf binder for each academic subject, to divide each binder into five sections — notes, homework, handouts, tests and quizzes, and blank paper — and to use a hole puncher relentlessly, so that every sheet of school-related paper is put into its proper home.

... contd.