OPINION
March 2018
COLLEGE IS KING JESSICA LU staff writer
Photo Courtesy of McDaniel’s Photography
5.5 hours of sleep is all she gets
a sweatshirt from their dream college. But at what price are we willing to pay in order to gain admittance to a prestigious college? For high schoolers like Zou, they have dedicated their high school careers toward its pursuit. As the youngest out of three children, Zou is no stranger to college jargon; words like SAT and ACT have the familiarity of an old friend. As a child of immigrants, whose hard work and success allowed for a comfortable lifestyle, she is “There’s so many things I start doing pressured to achieve higher and to exceed for college: the hardest course the precedents set by her two older siblings. load, new clubs, initiatives, summer “My parents want me programs...” to go to a good college, Christine Zou so I can succeed and receive a good education, and thus have a good, happy future,” Zou said. Craze for college To the average high schooler, “a good Harvard. Princeton. Yale. Our college” could be any school close to generation is so attracted to hearing home. But for the competitive minority these names, wearing these names, of students, the definition of a good and aspiring to be part of these names. college is not as wholly subjective. It is impossible to count how many “If you talk admissions rate, a good students we have seen proudly sporting college would be probably less Her life is non-stop and offers little reprieve. But a hard-pressed schedule like hers is not a rare occurrence. What exactly motivates students like Zou to put their body through a large amount of stress and fatigue? For a large number, the ultimate goal of college. Not just a local one, but a university with national prestige. “There’s so many things I start doing for college: the hardest course load, new clubs, initiatives, summer programs...” Zou said.
take, say, the painting class they had their eye on? Unless a student happens to be the next Picasso and has the “The problem is that we have blindly sold capacity to win a litany ourselves on college as the only route of awards, the chances to life satisfaction, meaning, and positive favor students opting for the GPA booster. Chase Mielke, teacher “In my junior year, I took AP chemistry, AP psych, AP Latin, In Zou’s case, she has resigned from pursuing any of her side interests during and etcetera because I knew they were challenging courses, and I thought school hours. “I wanted to take photography, but my they’d look good for college, said Anita Pan, 12. “I didn’t enjoy them because mom said no because it was pointless they felt like an obligation.” and wouldn’t help me get into college,” “I wish I could’ve taken more food Zou said. courses like Gourmet Foods as well as Interest avoidance participate in Fast Track, Economics, While there are certainly some Creative Writing, or Ceramics, just students who do not let the influence of something fun and interesting that college admissions dictate the courses would have me jumping out of bed to go they take, they almost seem like an to school,” Pan said. anomaly. Now, taking all these AP classes is not “It’s almost like the better your grades completely pointless, as they can offer and everything are, almost the higher enriched knowledge across different the expectations and the pressure,” subjects or spark a student’s interest. Stephenson said. And college is undoubtedly important Here at SHS, we are blessed with the with studies showing a direct opportunity to take a wide variety of AP correlation between higher education classes. But this selection can almost and greater salaries. feel like a double-edged sword. But high school is also a critical “Sometimes I wish that our school time for teenagers to explore, to find didn’t offer so many AP classes, so I themselves, and to uncover new hobbies could take more electives I’m actually and passions. Our utter obsession, interested in,” Zou said. fixation on the future just may distract For those aiming for the exclusivity us from enjoying the present. of that ‘reach school,’ would they rather Something needs to change, and take a challenging class that could boost hopefully, it will happen soon. their credentials and GPA or would they positive contributions to society,” wrote longtime teacher Chase Mielke on “Huffington Post.”
Grades do not matter Can we re ally bl ame students for thei r c ollege an xiety? “Year to year, we find that getting good grades in challenging courses is what college admission offices value most when reviewing applications from first-time freshmen.” Joyce E. Smith, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling
BY THE NUMBERS
77.1%
Of colleges think grades are considerably important Colleges that think grades have little to no importance when considering applications.
<10%
Source: National Association for College Admission Counseling
on a regular basis. Six hours is a luxury. Instead of sleep, she forces black coffee down her throat to stay alert, albeit slipping into the occasional daze when class seems to drag. Student Christine Zou is in her most stressful year of high school: junior year. She leaves the house at 6:15 am and returns at 2:30 p.m. But her day is far from over. At home, she practices violin and manages to fit in some homework until 4:30 p.m., when she travels to her ballet studio downtown to train with her class until she is fatigued and sore. By the time she gets home at 9:30 p.m., rather than collapsing onto her bed, Zou attempts to chip away at the mountain of homework load given by her five AP classes. When she has the time, she tries to plan for her club’s next meeting. She falls asleep well after midnight, only to repeat this exhausting day again. On the weekends, it is a scramble to catch up on more homework, to practice more violin, to train more in ballet, and to fit in other extracurricular activities like volunteering.
than 15-18 percent. So to be more specific: Ivies, Stanford, John Hopkins University, Rice, UChicago, Vanderbilt, WashU, Duke, etc.,” Zou said As a society, our ongoing obsession with post-secondary education often starts right as we enter high school. While it is true that most students have no clue of their plans for the future, even by the time they graduate, the unwieldy truth is that hopeful applicants still center their entire high school career around college admissions. “If you talk about the time when I went to college, there definitely has been a big shift in our attitudes towards college admissions,” said Mrs. Bonnie Stephenson, SHS counselor. Especially regarding the aspiring individuals aiming for exclusive schools, spending hundreds of hours outside of school studying for a standardized test and engaging in noteworthy extracurriculars and sports are simply base requirements for a relevant college application. And that alone does not seem like enough to make these high-aiming students stand out. More and more do we see students, in the name of college, forsake their interests in order to build their academic resumes, believing that the time for finding themselves occurs after high school. “The problem is that we have blindly sold ourselves on college as the only route to life satisfaction, meaning and