by:  Hannah Cayem

In this day and age, high school students are programmed to be “the perfect applicant to college” from day one of their schooling career. Whether they are interested in going to an Ivy or community college, students are taught at a young age that they must be “well rounded;” from being a star athlete to an academic scholar to acting as a lead in the play.

How are students supposed to find time for all of these obligations while still doing well academically? Every honors class at Westborough High School assigns approximately a half an hour to forty five minutes of homework every night, and APs give forty five minutes to an hour. If students play a sport and takes a handful of honors and AP courses, they are still expected to find time to sleep at night. That dream is no longer a reality for many of the WHS students who are overworked and overbooked.

How are students supposed to enjoy life and pursue their own interests with this huge pile of expectations already on their plate? Isn’t high school supposed to be a time to explore and experience new things?

Teachers pride themselves on “preparing students for college;” yet in a recent Huffington Post article, “High School to College Transition, Part 1: The Freshman Myth” by Dr. Brian Karke, Ed. D., Dr. Karke states “Nearly 34% [of college students] dropped out in the first year because they were over confident, under-prepared and lacked realistic expectations about college.” This proves the point- all this “fluff” students are focused on isn’t truly important.

In an interview with Tom Ashbrook on 90.9 WBUR, Vicki Ableles, the filmmaker of “A Race to Nowhere,” a film about America’s schools today, says “I think today’s [school] system isn’t generating kids who are independent thinkers and ready to contribute to the world. So I think we have to ask ourselves whether we are wanting to create a generation of test-takers and resume-builders, or do we want problem-solvers and life-long learners and healthy young adults.”

Of course colleges are not jumping out of their seats to accept students who bum their way through school, but these ridiculous standards of high school students today are not preparing them for college; instead they are taking away real life experience and causing students to spend their time inefficiently and ineffectively.

Ashbrook, Tom. “Student Stress, Competition & the Educational “Race to Nowhere” | On Point with Tom            Ashbrook.” On Point with Tom Ashbrook RSS. Trustees of Boston University, 14 Dec. 2010. Web.      27 Feb. 2014. <http://onpoint.wbur.org/2010/12/14/education-race-nowhere>.

Ed.D., Brian Harke. “High School to College Transition, Part 1: The Freshman Myth.” The Huffington Post.                 TheHuffingtonPost.com, 22 June 2010. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.           <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-harke/high-school-to-college-tr_b_620043.html>.