Article by gabrielle viera

Super Student “I’m in five classes I have AP Chemistry ASB where I’m Junior Secretary Treasurer. And then HAM Lit which is Honors American Lit and then Calculus AB AP and AP Biology. And I’m also taking a History course through Foothill College.” - Vicky Wong

By Gabrielle Viera

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The alarm rings and you’re trudging out of bed to get ready. You are ready to leave by four thirty (AM) for practice.

On the way to school you find yourself finishing your statistics homework which just so happens to be your first class of the day. Your classes zoom by but now it’s lunch and you’re running over to History class to make up an assignment you missed when you were at a tournament. It’s finally over and you have some time to rest after school in the library, but this respite doesn’t last long, for soon your phone’s buzzing and telling you it’s four thirty, time for afternoon practice.

Lugging your backpack to the locker room, you change and get ready for practice. Sore and tired, you’re finally home, and with a quick seven o’clock dinner you’re off to your room to do homework. Ten thirty:

you’re done with homework and ready to relax. With a few texts to your friends you soon fall asleep, hoping to be rested and energized for tomorrow.

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igh school is supposed to be a time when students find themselves and get ready for college, but that ideal has changed a lot in recent years. Students are preparing for college by taking AP and Honors classes to oneup other students in the college apps race, but there’s an even more extreme group who load up on sports and additional college readiness classes. In past years it was an either/or situation: you were either in sports or had amazing grades.

However this new superhero of a student has risen, boasting t wo super powers under its belt: sports and straight A’s.

tudents like Vicky Wong, Kate Atherton, and Cameron Fitz, all juniors at Mountain View High School, have been living their whole lives or at least their high school lives playing sports. These three girls have busy days with t wo to three AP classes plus homework. Some athletes have mornings filled with long, hard practices as well as their traditional after school practice. It’s amazing that they have time to themselves. Wong has been in Palo Alto Stanford Aquatics since third grade, starts her day off at four fifteen in the morning for a swim practice at Stanford, and then goes on to a full day of school, and again to an afternoon practice. Her classes also consist of three official AP classes, calculus, chemistry, and biology, as well as a history class at Foothill College.

Most students are encouraged to enroll in one AP class during their high school career. Wong has been doing this for a long time and now it is her normal life. think that a lot of people are just repulsed by the fact that I wake up at four in the morning, and really it just kind of becomes a lifestyle, I think... I know a lot of people do a lot of things; it’s just important not to compare yourself to others. I’m not like in six AP classes. I’m not in ten

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different clubs. I’m just doing what I think I can do and just want to do the best I can, personally, and not judge myself by comparing myself to someone else. (Wong)

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ost students do what they love at school, but even that takes a small toll. Atherton explains, “Sometimes I wonder how much better my grades would be if I was just not doing a sport but my love for it is so much so that it be hard to quit.” Atherton’s drive pushed her even to participate in the Olympic Development program for Water Polo.

Similarly Fitz has been playing sports since she was a kid but in recent events she has had to give it up due to health reasons. Her plan for so long, to play sports in college now just seemed out of reach. Recently, she has come to Freestyle, a digital arts school, and thrived but now relying on Freestyle to add flare to her college application.

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any students like Fitz have their eyes set on a certain goal but it is intercepted by something bigger than them. Becoming a well conditioned athlete as well as a well conditioned student has certain advantages, mostly to show that you’re a

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ith thousands of well rounded person and have students racing self perseverance. But just to for a spot in an show the world this skill where Ivy league school. is the line drawn on one’s sanity. This is harder for some to But for many of them this cope with than others. A scary is not possible but that still fact is that most people espe- doesn’t stop thousands of stucially happy go lucky athletes don’t show their symptoms till it’s too late. Some of the best super heroes can die in battle because they are just not equipped with the right weapon they need.

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n an article by The Atlantic it tells the story of one out of the many increasing number of suicides that have been occurring in Palo Alto since 2009. ( Mountain View is just one city over from the hustle and bustle of Palo Alto. But how come in this hybrid area of electronics and education that one school seems to deal with more student suicides than the other. At Mountain View kids seem to thrive and even with huge amounts of homework kids don’t seem as stressed. To observers this seems ultimately impossible but to students at Mountain View it’s just an everyday account. There is little knowledge on this but some seem to think it’s mostly because of the way students are treated. (para. Rosin)

dents to apply each believing that their application is the most unique. Even Har vard has been bringing light to the situation by trying to make college applications and acceptance less of a ‘rat race’ to ease students stress. They have been themselves trying to accept people who have the grades but also have other things going on in there life besides school.

Parker (last name) has been doing rhythmic gymnastics for ten years thinks that the idea of doing sports for college isn’t what the sport should be about “Quote.”

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Works Cited Atherton, Kate. Personal Interview. 9 March 2016.

Berke, Jeremy. “Harvard Just Proposed a Radically New Approach to College Admissions in America.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 20 Jan. 2016.

Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Fitz, Cameron. Personal Interview. 25 March 2016.

Rosin, Hanna. “The Silicon Valley Suicides.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, Dec. 2015. Web 24 Apr. 2016.

Wong, Vicky. Personal Interview. 2 March 2016.

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