As all frazzled juniors going on five hours of sleep can attest, the penultimate year of high school brings with it challenges and expectations. The pressure to do well academically increases over the course of high school, as does the level of difficulty; however, colleges typically focus on the junior year, often thought of as the most important. Come next September, I will join the throng of millions of desperate seniors, offering my transcripts, extracurricular activities, and essays to admissions offices to comb through, hoping that my junior year trumps everyone else’s.
Like Madison’s own Hunger Games, many juniors are desperate to be one of the high-ranked winners of the class. At sixteen or seventeen, juniors can’t vote, can’t drive without an adult in the car, can’t drink; academics are the only thing juniors can control. This system emphasizes performance over learning, leading to rote memorization instead of real learning.
The current high school system prioritizes what’s good for college over what’s good for individual students. In order to get into a good school, students have to be well-rounded individuals, boasting honors and AP classes, extracurricular activities, sports, and leadership opportunities. Junior Georgia Turvey concurs, noting that “I hate feeling like my life is oriented around what my future is supposed to be like”.
Something has to give, and it hopefully won’t be the students. Madison High School is trying to depressurize the time bomb that is junior year, but their contribution – making class rank unavailable to juniors – isn’t enough. As Georgia comments, students “ should base where they want to go to college around their high school lives, not base their high school experiences around where they want to go to school.” As it is, the class of 2015 has to focus on looking good to colleges while Madison High School works toward fulfilling the promise of real learning and enhancement.