High school brings to mind a confusing jumble of misleading imagery. In the ideal high school experience, students take a few challenging classes without overwhelming themselves. Outside of school, they join a club or two and hang out with friends, leaving them with enough mental bandwidth to manage the college admissions process come senior year. There may be some teenage drama but everyone will somehow pull everything together before going to college.
In reality, high school isn’t like this. While I recognize how privileged I am to attend a school that is as well-funded and academically stimulating as Lexington High School, there are several ways in which student life is lacking, and the student body is suffering due to stress and external pressure. This is especially evident during the most stressful part of the high school experience: college applications. My experiences have led me to believe that it is imperative that LHS provides more support to students during the college application process.
The college application process is an enormous, slightly terrifying ordeal involving a carefully curated resume, multiple rounds of standardized testing, one large personal essay, along with piles of supplemental essays. As I navigated this process, the sheer number of things I had to do was terrifying. What was particularly isolating was the lack of support offered by LHS. As a result, my family and I spent a lot of time trying to figure things out on our own.
When the school doesn’t provide sufficient support, there are other resources that families may use, but some of them cost exorbitant amounts of money. Although many have parents able to spend thousands of dollars on their kids’ college applications, others do not have the means to and have to labor through the process alone, which just isn’t fair. The only official help the school offers is a one-week bootcamp with 20 slots in the middle of July, plus a few counselor seminars to sort out the minor logistics, which just isn’t enough.
What students need is extensive support for the bulk of the application process–the essays, the activities list, and standardized tests. I believe students would benefit from a one credit class dedicated to help with any and all things related to college applications. Ideally, the administration would prioritize the enrollment of students who qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch programs and those who may not have many other resources available to them.
This won’t eliminate the stress associated with the college application process. Many of us will still be up late at night on Oct. 31 or on Dec. 31 racing to turn in last minute applications with deadlines the next day, but more college application support from our school would decrease such last-minute stress, reduce inequities and enhance students’ well-being.