Juniors get college application period

By Aleen Jaradeh Junior Editor

As part of the revamped College Guidance Department, new mandatory weekly classes are now being taught to juniors to prepare them for the college application process.

By Nitza Hanan Junior Editor

It was fourth period on a Monday morning while junior Shelley Safdie patiently waited for the bell to ring. She was famished and was dreaming about what to eat for lunch. She decided she wanted a salad, but when looking at the salad choices she was horrified when it was only kale, which she hates. She decided not to eat a salad and went to get a bagel.

The surplus of kale salads isn’t because the stores find them more appealing and believe it will benefit their businesses. This change has been caused by a bacterial disease that affects romaine lettuce, called Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus. Stores adapted to these circumstances and created alternative options that most of their customers still enjoy.

Julie Maleh, the founder of Jus by Julie, explained how her business was able to turn this shortage into a blessing. At first, it was extremely difficult to adapt to the circumstances. “In the beginning, we were forced to raise prices,” Maleh commented. However, she was quickly able to find new dishes that are not lettuce-based. Her customers now have a bigger variety of options, which helped expand her business. She shared, “I always believe that when one door closes a new door opens.”

Many students expressed that they have stopped buying salads because of the lack of romaine. Junior Mollie Ashkenazi shared, “I haven’t gone down to the basement in a while because I don’t like kale. Now I have to find other options that I like.” Many other students agreed with this statement, and said the recent rise in kale has affected their lunch choices.

However, some students don’t share this belief. Sophia Madeb stated, “I love kale and am excited that there is more of it available.” Madeb is one of the few students who is happy about the lack of romaine.

This problem followed the students outside of school and into their home lives. Leah Lati expressed her frustration that her home dinners aren’t the same as they used to be. “My mom started using frisée and arugula, and it tastes like grass. I’m just really missing romaine salads. I wish I didn’t take it for granted,” she exclaimed.

Esther Shemia agreed with this and added, “I love making my own salads for lunch, but recently I can’t because of the lack of romaine and now I have to pay for expensive lunches.”

Impatiens Necrotic Spot Virus (INSV) is a disease that mainly affects romaine lettuce. This disease started in California and is incredibly difficult to treat. Once one plant is infected it must be isolated. If that is not done INSV will quickly spread to the rest of the crop. This decreased the number of crops which resulted in skyrocketing prices. Although this started in California it has affected crops, and prices all over the nation.

These classes replace one of the two gym classes given to the juniors, a decision made by the school administration. They began this month and will continue through May, and will focus on a multitude of aspects regarding the college application process, such as targeted college research, college essay writing, standardized testing, CUNY, SUNY, private schools, and more. Students will be taught each piece of the application and how to communicate all their extracurricular and volunteer activities throughout their application in the most effective manner. Furthermore, juniors will have completed writing their college essays by the end of this school year, whereas most students in the past hadn’t even started writing until the beginning of their senior year.

Ms. Mottahedeh, the director of the college guidance department, credits the idea of a college curriculum to her work as a college counselor. “At my former school, where I was for 10 years before I came here, we always taught our kids a college curriculum and it really helped in a couple of ways,” she stated. Utilizing a college curriculum “helps students feel less anxious in the fall of their senior year” and allows them to have more time to navigate through the application process, and made it so that by the fall students felt they understood the terms being used regarding the application process and what was expected of them.

According to an anonymous senior, “College applications this year were one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done in my entire life. I felt completely lost throughout the entire process and felt like I was always working on things too close to the deadline. Therefore, I believe the new weekly classes sound like they would do a lot to relieve the stress and uncertainty of college applications and give the upcoming juniors more time in their first semester of senior year.”

The stress of beginning senior year unprepared for the application process is something that Ms. Mottahedeh hopes the new college curriculum will prevent the upcoming senior grade from experiencing.

“The college department has been planning to do this program since the fall, but we started intentionally this spring, since junior year is already a very stressful year. Therefore, we didn’t want the classes to be all year on top of all the junior’s classes, so we really tried to make it in a way which would allow the juniors to ease in and get comfortable in their classes before we started the curriculum,” Ms. Mottahedeh explained.

“I’m hoping that the college classes will be helpful. They seem promising and that the department knows what they’re doing, I just hope that it works out because it’s never been done before,” junior Bella Shamayeva expresses.

“I feel like we didn’t really start actually doing anything, we just talked about it, and they just gave us the outline of how it’s gonna be. I hope that it will eventually help us research colleges and see what we want to do.” said junior Ezra Harari

However, junior Leah Lati states “I am thankful that college guidance recognizes that the college process is stressful and that they are giving us these classes. However, I wish they didn’t have to be during our gym period because gym was the only time I’d have class with all the girls from the other honors class.”