By the time the first bell rings, a large majority of high school students are in various AP classes, receiving extremely high grades, studying for standardized tests, and editing four essays for honors societies, and still, it is never enough. This overload of impressiveness leads to a problem: it is nearly impossible for students to differentiate themselves academically. In today’s high school climate, students are pushed to take the same high-level classes, get the same grades, and have the same metrics overall. So, how do you stand academically to colleges and others?
In times past, the best students were set apart by the number of advanced classes they took. But now, every student is in these classes. While AP and dual-enrollment classes used to indicate exceptional rigor and achievement, they are seen as givens now. Around 35% of high school students are now taking one or more AP classes (College Board); this is an extremely high percentage. Schools encourage, sometimes even pressure, students to take as many APs as they can to reach the threshold of being competitive for colleges. This results in the bar being raised higher and higher, which can mean academic rigor means nothing in terms of differentiating students.
Not only are students taking these AP classes, but thriving and flourishing in them. An astonishing number of students have nearly identical GPAs, as grade inflation and uniformity lessen the gaps between good students and great students. Students in the same range become clustered together, making it hard to tell them apart in terms of academic achievement. Those students who are not in this copy-and-paste GPA landscape feel pressure to be perfect and do better, not because they want to learn, but because they need to keep up for college admissions and their future. Eventually, this cycle leads to every student having the same As in the same classes. Therefore, how does any school tell which students are actually impressive, and which are just taking advantage of the system?
All of this similarity is only furthered by the large number of students involved in honors societies. Not only are there more students in honors societies, but also more and more honors societies are appearing. This makes the distinction insignificant as every student has the same resumé, same AP scholar awards, and same achievements. For most students, authentic interests and hobbies are pushed aside for “impressive” and “necessary” resumé builders that end up sounding and looking the same. In the act of attempting to stay competitive for colleges, students have become clones of each other, unable to differentiate themselves.
Lack of academic differentiation is also caused by the pressures of the current school system. Schools reward conformity in academics, not individuality or uniqueness. Most schools have rubric-based learning, which means students can only do well if they follow the rules, not if they think out of the box or in their own way. In addition to this, with all of the AP classes students take, there is less time for them to do independent studies or explore niche classes. This means that any class scheduling that used to set students apart no longer exists. Students who want to take a unique path often don’t have the flexibility, time, or support to do that.
Students fail to differentiate themselves not due to a lack of ambition or impressiveness, but because the current school system encourages sameness instead of rewarding true excellence, even if it is unique. There is a desperate need for the school system, as well as for students, to find new ways to differentiate themselves academically, even if that means disrupting the current definition of impressive.
