On The Road To College
VAISHNAVI SUREN | SEPT 25, 2018 | FEATURES
As high school students continue to raise the bar for academic expectations, getting admitted into the college of one's choice becomes much harder to achieve. Ambitious students make use of any tips or tricks they can get their hands on to navigate the complex system of resume-building. These students usually end up split into two camps for their high school careers: well-rounded in all subjects, or choosing just one area to master for the next four years.
For well-rounded students, getting involved in various academic subjects and extracurriculars seems the best method to polish their resumes, while others prefer to dedicate their time and energy into excelling in one area—a "big spike" they believe will impress colleges and make themselves stand out from other college candidates.
Junior Maria Dyro thinks a benefit of being well-rounded is being able to meet new people and acquire new skills and interests, as she thinks colleges are looking for individuals that are outgoing as well as involved in various extracurriculars. Having participated in cross-country and last year’s Drama Department production of Seussical the Musical, Dyro believes she is currently on track for filling out a highly varied resume. She still thinks however, that involvement in multiple activities requires commitment to maintain.
“Students shouldn’t feel pressured to get involved,” said Dyro. “One drawback to trying to be well-rounded is that you could just end up doing a little bit of everything just for the sake of doing it and end up stretching yourself too far and not actually be good at any of what you do.”
Like Dyro, senior Tatiana Caballero holds the same opinion on being careful not to stretch oneself too thin, but also believes being well-rounded provides students with the opportunity for self-discovery. Caballero is a member of both the Stanton College Preparatory School band and the River City Youth Orchestra, and hopes to advance to the front of the section in the youth orchestra playing string bass. She has been a member of Stanton’s tennis team since freshman year, is the president of Stanton’s Gender Sexuality Alliance and is leading the Irish dance group in Multicultural Club this year.
“The benefit of being well-rounded is that you get to try out a lot of things,” said Caballero. “There's only so many things that you can do in life, and you can get to decide whether you want to keep doing them or not in the long run by trying them out first in high school.”
Caballero believes Stanton’s rigorous curriculum makes it difficult to balance all that she wants to do, but has ultimately allowed her to become more effective with managing her time. She has learned to prioritize through trying to maintain commitment to everything she participates in.
"I'm really spread out across multiple activities," said Caballero. "So I have to learn how to say no to things, and it's helped me become more disciplined."
Students seeking to be well-rounded have shown interest in discovering new passions, but some students have known right from the beginning of high school what they wanted to achieve a big spike in—and in senior Amanda Forbes’s case, since before high school as well. Forbes has been rowing since seventh grade, and is currently a coxswain, or steersman, on the First Coast Rowing varsity team for men.
“The benefit of rowing since seventh grade is that there's a really high chance of getting a scholarship,” said Forbes. “It’s a lot of commitment, but on a college application, rowing shows that you are a person who knows how to take leadership.”
Forbes said she is keeping her options open, but is still hoping for a rowing scholarship, especially considering the amount of time she has dedicated to the sport.
“I've had to sacrifice homework time and doing clubs. I'm in a couple of honors societies, but not many clubs because I don't have much time to meet up after school,” said Forbes. “I had to skip prom last year because we were at a race.”
While Forbes and other student athletes looking for scholarships focus on one extracurricular to commit all their time to, other students, like senior Aastha Sinha, have been participating in multiple activities centered around one field.
Sinha knew she wanted to go into law since elementary school. From seventh grade to tenth grade, she participated in Teen Court, a court where teens charged with offenses can be judged and sentenced by a jury of peers of the same age. By tenth grade, she received a job at Jimenez Law Firm in San Marco as a paralegal.
“I’ve worked at Jimenez Law Firm for a year and a half, and that’s the biggest part of my high school career,” said Sinha. “That was when I realized how much I loved the law.”
Sinha is applying to the University of Florida, but also hopes to get a chance at admission in Ivy League law programs at schools like Harvard and Columbia University.
“I think my love for the law and wanting to be a lawyer is the biggest part of my college application,” said Sinha. “I think when colleges see my application they’ll see that I’m driven in what I want to do.”
Sinha is also president of the Debate Club and the Law Club, and is helping to start up a mock court and mock trial team in Law Club this year. Last summer she attended American Legion Auxiliary Girls State, a government leadership program, and served there as a county attorney.
“I’ve gotten a lot of criticism from my family about being so driven in law that I haven’t dived into other fields,” said Sinha. “Sometimes I wonder if I had tried a different route in middle school, maybe I would be completely different. Those ‘what ifs’ are always there, but I also know how much I love what I do, so I have never regretted for a minute about going on this one very specific path.”
Focusing on achieving a big spike often leads students to extend their interests in their fields outside of school extracurriculars, like with junior Imani Ashman. A member of the girls varsity soccer team at Stanton, Ashman also plays for the Jacksonville division of the Elite Club National League, a competition platform for girls in soccer throughout the United States.
“I think that writing about soccer in my college resume will show that I’m open-minded and used to meeting diverse people from all across the nation,” said Ashman, who has played in states as far away as California and as close by as Alabama.
Ashman believes that dedicating this much time to playing nationwide, however, has led her to miss out on social gatherings and extra time to focus on academics, but she still thinks that playing the sport in high school has taught her discipline and how to stay committed to one goal, which is make it to the national championship in ECNL.
“I think colleges are looking for your involvement with your community through what you do,” said Ashman. “It isn’t just the fact of doing a sport that will impress them, it’s how that sport shows your character.”
Students have learned to develop these resume-building methods as a result of the drastic decrease in college acceptance rates nationwide. According to IvyWise, an educational consultant firm designed to help students prepare for college, acceptance rates have more than halved since the 1990s. The admissions rate for the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 was 47 percent, for example, and is now at 12.3 percent.
“We want to build a well-rounded class but a well-rounded class is not made up exclusively of well-rounded individuals. There’s a place in our class for those who are well-rounded and there’s a place in our class for those students who focus on one or two activities but who participate in those activities to the max.”
The 74 Million, an education-centric news website in the United States, elaborates on these statistics: the primary reason for the drop in college admissions is due to a smaller student population in comparison to previous generations. Less students means less money for colleges to receive and spend on offering scholarships and financial aid, which means a majority of students no longer have the opportunity to afford college. When access to higher level education in today's high schools is taken into consideration, colleges turn even more selective.
“When we review someone’s extracurricular resume we are looking for two things – the first of which is demonstrated commitment or passion,” according to a blog from the College of William and Mary’s admissions officers. “We want to build a well-rounded class but a well-rounded class is not made up exclusively of well-rounded individuals. There’s a place in our class for those who are well-rounded and there’s a place in our class for those students who focus on one or two activities but who participate in those activities to the max.”
The fact that colleges may be seeking both well-rounded and big spike applicants means students are not limited to just one method of building a resume. According to Stanton counselor May Ibasco, Stanton students find that an increase in academic competition makes it necessary for them to take advantage of every opportunity they can to show colleges they are three-dimensional applicants.
"Secondary education is a must nowadays," said Ms. Ibasco. "I think this generation's access to programs like APs, IB and AICE are really raising the bar for college admissions, and what kind of students colleges want."
Stanton English teacher Amy Johns said that it was much easier to get into the University of Florida when she was a teen than it is now.
“Since it's a less expensive option for Stanton students, a lot of them applying there end up making it harder to get in,” said Ms. Johns. “I also know that some of the more prestigious and exclusive colleges will not take multiple students from the same school.”
Stanton students are not only competing against students elsewhere for a spot in top colleges, but against other Stanton students as well. Ms. Johns is hopeful this feeling of rivalry within Stanton will decrease in upcoming years. As for now, however, Stanton culture still focuses on students attempting to obtain rankings, certificates and leadership titles to become better applicants in comparison to other students.
No matter whether each student chooses to develop a well-rounded resume with a little bit of everything or narrow their focus to one area in order to master it, one thing is certain: the growing pressure to raise the bar for academic and extracurricular expectations at school has increased significantly in the past two decades. Students have had to reevaluate how to prepare for the next step of their academic career and make their four years in high school count.