“Freshmen are clueless and should still be in middle school.” “No one really cares about the sophomores.” “Junior year is literally hell.” “Just wait till senior year to party.”

We hear these stereotypes about each grade level all the time. That means that these reputations have to be true, right?

Maybe not. These so-called truths about each grade are, ultimately, dependent on individual students’ decisions and actions.

Freshmen may be new to the high school experience and unprepared for the jump from middle school, but they easily get into the swing of high school life, as shown by how many freshmen turn out for rallies.

While sophomores are an interim grade level between naive freshmen and suffering juniors, they obviously still make impacts in school by participating in Homecoming quad days, running fundraisers and playing crucial roles in JV and even varsity sports teams.

Colleges have made sure that junior year is filled with troubles and stress, emphasizing it as the most academically significant. However, many juniors are already prepared for the increased workload and are able to handle the exaggerated “hell” of their grade level.

The assumption that senior year is low stress and a time to catch up on sleep is also unfounded. Seniors still work hard in their first semesters to be able to go to their choice colleges. Even in second semester, seniors are not completely let loose to cut cluss or not finish homework.

It is, in fact, the exaggerations of students that leads most people to believe these stereotypes. These myths simply should not exist. It is up to individuals’ actions that we can judge them, not by how we group them without getting to know them beforehand.