College presentations should be restricted to upperclassmen

November 15, 2019 — by Kaitlyn Tsai

Underclassmen simply waste time and perpetuate hypercompetitive school culture by attending presentations meant for juniors and seniors.

Walking into the Trimble conference room in the main office to listen to a college presentation, I was surprised to see a few sophomores seated in the back of the room. When I attended another presentation at lunch in the MAP Annex that day, once again, I spotted a small cluster of sophomores. 

Frankly, those encounters depressed me a little more than my chances of attending those colleges did.

Why underclassmen feel the need to listen to these college presentations bewilders me. Regardless of whether they think they know their intended majors, freshmen and sophomores frequently change their paths as they continue to encounter new experiences throughout high school and explore what they enjoy and what they don’t. College students often change their academic paths in their first two years, so for high school underclassmen to “declare their majors” is even more absurd.

This renders attending college presentations useless for underclassmen; the visits function as a way for students to find out if certain schools fit their wants, so why attend them if they don’t even know their wants? 

The fact that some underclassmen, still years away from having to worry about college admissions, feel the need to attend these presentations also demonstrates the extent of college obsession at our school. Rather than spending their tutorials or lunches chiseling away at schoolwork or taking the time to relax, they choose to spend 35 minutes of their time listening to a presentation, most likely with the hopes of “getting ahead” of their peers in the college admissions mania. 

This isn’t to say that underclassmen should disregard their plans or dismiss college as unimportant, but caring so much about college in the early stages of their high school careers is similar to neglecting to enjoy sunny weather in the process of worrying about the rain forecasted for the week after next.

Given that attending these presentations simply wastes the underclassmen’s time and fuels a sense of competition that already permeates our school’s culture, the administration should restrict presentation attendance to upperclassmen. Not only can the school then ensure that there is enough space for upperclassmen to attend these visits, but such a policy would fit the school’s goal of lowering academic pressure.

Contrary to how it may seem, restricting attendance to upperclassmen does not completely prevent underclassmen from learning about the schools they may want to attend. If a freshman or sophomore really wanted to learn more about a university, he or she could simply peruse the school’s website for general background information. This task takes significantly less time than the 35 minutes an underclassman would otherwise waste at a presentation where upperclassmen would ask questions about admissions, something still several years away from sophomores and freshmen. 

Still, at the end of the day, college is simply a pit stop in a student’s life, and the school should encourage this mentality, especially among underclassmen. Rather than spending their time fretting about admissions or attending college presentations, underclassmen should focus on enjoying the less stressful years of high school while they can and use that time to instead explore new activities that could help them determine their interests and target schools when they finally reach that bridge.

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