A typical day of Junior year might look a bit like this: four tests, four or more hours of homework, studying for AP tests, studying for the SAT and the subject tests, juggling school, sports, music, and your social life, which is now nonexistent.
Freshmen and sophomores are wondering what I’m talking about, juniors are shaking their heads wondering how they even manage sanity, and seniors are just wondering how they got through all of this.
This is junior year. This is war. A war of you against society’s expectations.
Some may be in disagreement with my description of junior year. Yes, it’s true that the third year of high school will be as hard as each person makes it, but many students take this opportunity to endure something close to a 10 class schedule-many of them AP or honors.
So why all of this hype about APs? Why is everyone trying to “catch them all”? College may be the answer to almost all of this insanity. Now, I’m not blaming anyone for this stressful year. One could say that the student brings it on himself by taking on such a rigorous schedule and refusing to drop any extracurriculars, but hey, we could all use a little less homework teachers! Probably the main instigator of this stressful year is colleges, they don’t do this by themselves though, society’s expectations exacerbate and “pour salt in the wound.” Colleges would never outright tell someone to take such a ridiculous schedule, but somewhere along the way someone did take this schedule. Then they found out that colleges would take them over other people because of their academic achievements coupled with sports and/or music. This knowledge got to the masses and everyone tried it, and that’s how all addictions start, people like to follow the crowd. In five years you might see this schedule on twitter’s top 10 trending topics; can’t you imagine to posts? “Ugh, the counselor won’t let me take a 12th AP, #junioryearproblems.”
Unfortunately, because so many high schooler’s résumés boasted an insane junior year, colleges have begun to only accept the best of the best. So some colleges have started to only look at GPAs, SAT and ACT scores, and whether this person can throw a football or donate a library; there is no objective process anymore and if there is, it has become a rarity. Parents talk about their younger years, describing a time when everyone applied to a few colleges and went where they got in. Back when preparing and tutoring for the SAT tests and APs was unnecessary, and no one perfected and sculpted his application like it was a 5,000 dollar vase.
Now, the implied requirements might include something along the lines of taking 10 APs and 5 honors, joining 6 clubs, getting a perfect or nearly perfect score on the SAT, scoring a 5 on each AP exam, and taking at least two subject tests and earning a 750 or higher on each one. Also, one might want to maintain a 4.6 GPA while heading a sports team or two and leading a philanthropic club. And this isn’t even to get into Harvard; no, one would have to cure cancer to do that. So all of this sounds good, students? Perfect, do all of this and maintain sanity, and we just might get you into your dream school.
Other than the college game, kids are just prideful. You may want to disagree but don’t you feel a little disappointed when you get a test back and it’s not what you expected or want? Don’t you then begin to worry about getting into that dream school? If you answered yes to any of the symptoms described you may be a victim of OSE or Outrageous Societal Expectations, talk to your doctor immediately.
Now kids may want to blame their teachers for the added stress because they do get so much homework, especially during Junior year. Unfortunately teachers are not to blame either, they are just a scapegoat and serve as someone to blame your stress on. I love all of my teachers to bits and I understand that they have to assign that much work to prepare their students for the real world. So we are back to the same conclusion to the problem, society. The Dali Lama once said when asked “What surprises him the most about humanity,” Man. “He sacrifices his health to make money, sacrifices his money to recuperate his health, he is anxious about the future and does not enjoy the present, and he lives as though he is never going to die and when he does he has never lived.” This quote describes the real world perfectly, it has all become a game of what you can do to make the most money and who you know. We see the real world reflected in Junior year, students sacrifice their health for the grades and pull all-nighters to perfect their essays and assignments. A student can’t enjoy the present either, they are too busy thinking about the future; aka getting into their dream college. If you asked a student “what do you do in your free time? What do you do for fun? How many hours do you sleep at night?” they might respond with “what is free time? what is this “fun” and “sleep? I’m sorry I have to go study s’more.” Society has turned our generation into coffee drinking robots, going into a malfunction when they have to deal with a real problem; they can solve the most complex of math equations or write the most beautiful essay but cannot do anything outside the school environment.