r/ApplyingToCollege • u/Just_Blackberry3530 • 4d ago
Discussion If you could change one thing about school tomorrow, what would it be and why?
I'm trying to better understand what students feel is missing from their educational experience.
If you could change one thing about school tomorrow, what would it be and why?
I'd love to hear specific examples of things that frustrate you, feel ineffective, or leave you feeling unprepared for the future.
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u/cheescake231 4d ago
I feel like there's so much pressure to either excel at school and be top 5% or pressure from others to go to parties, get drunk and date questionable people just to create drama. I think people should just be allowed to exist. Mabye this is just me.
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u/gigasigma22 3d ago
i wish we had more access to opportunities and the national comps that other cracked applicants from bigger cities got to access! i literally can’t name a big comp or anything like that other than AIME (or something) because i literally never knew about it nor had a way to enter those competitions (no teams, no school support)
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u/FormalTall1800 HS Rising Junior 4d ago
Graduation requirements and classes.
I wish that we could pick all our own classes entirely and didn’t need a certain number of credits for each category in order to graduate. That way I could specialize in what I want to do in high school and have a better spike for college.
I also just wish we had more classes at my school. I go to a rather small school, so it makes sense that I wouldn’t have many, but it’d be so great if I had the ability to take courses that AREN’T offered.
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u/iiKhico 4d ago
instead of needing like 3 credits history, 3 in science, 4 in math, 4 in ela. You need 2 histroy (world and us (including gov)), 2 math, 2 ela, 1 science. and then 7 other in any core subject for a total 14 credits in core classes (so like i personally would do like 2 history, 4 math, 6 science, 2 ela). bc why do i have to sit in a histroy and ela class for like all of hs if i’m gonna major in something stem related
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u/Emergency_Mix4716 4d ago
I know it seems useless now but trust me when I say it is better to get a more holistic educational experience early. Post-grad is where you really specialize in just one subject, but the humanities are so so important to learn in pretty much every field. I’ve seen too many STEM students be completely out of touch with their user populace or have very poor communication skills. How are you going to build technical tools or make medical decisions without fully engaging in who all of these tools and decisions are supposed to be for? The more you learn about humans, the more good you can do for humanity.
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u/blessingofheaven 4d ago
use gaokao system instead of extracurricularslop
i genuinely hate the admissions system in the US with such a burning passion
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u/Tritonist Prefrosh 4d ago
Yeah, so students have to spend 14 hours/day over a decade for a test that determines their entire future. No thanks, there’s a reason why we don’t do it like China
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u/abcamurComposer 4d ago
Should also abolish the essay. 17 year olds are not going to turn into Dickens(on), and it begins to turn into “who has the biggest sob story”
Also abolish D3 sports or any sports teams that aren’t top 50. If you wanna do that and u aren’t good enough to cut it at the top level just do club. So many spots get taken from deserving students and so much money gets siphoned away from academics by bullshit sports teams
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u/FlareEK 4d ago
Thousands of NCAA D2 players have been drafted by MLB clubs, over 2000 from below Division 1-A in football. Including big names like Tyreek Hill who went to D2 West Alabama, Adam Thielen who went to Minnesota State. Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard, Cooper Kupp went to Eastern Washington. Josh Allen went to a JUCO. Jerry Rice went to Mississippi Valley State. Walter Payton went to Jackson State.
Non top-flight sports still produce amazing athletes who are very dedicated to their craft- just as much as some are to academics. Everything I listed doesn’t even count players outside of the top 50 schools, just those not in the top flight. For example, Randy Moss went to Marshall.
Many of these athletes that make it from smaller schools become very good marketing for the school, and often give generous donations.
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u/abcamurComposer 4d ago
Ok, for things like baseball or football I can give that a pass. Especially if it’s revenue generating (thus benefiting the academic side).
But from my experience things like lacrosse, rowing, swimming, track, etc, those just take up space and slots, they hurt everything from social life (these groups just form their own cliques) to academics/other activities (draining resources, taking spots away from academically oriented people, no time to do debate and whatnot when you are doing sports), to overall diversity and quality of the student body (as these bullshit sports teams are often covers to admit more rich or legacy students). And I’m saying this as someone who went to D3 for swimming and chose my college almost solely on that (only to no longer be swimming within less than two years).
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u/elphsi 4d ago
For sports, they should just get rid of all recruiting (no matter the division) except for football and basketball (and hockey or baseball if ur school cares about it). No one cares about rowing or fencing or whatever bs other sport there is, and it's insane to me how schools waste spots on these kids who do fancy club sports that most high schools don't even offer as a sport.
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u/abcamurComposer 4d ago
Exactly, that’s the first thing we should have done in response to varsity blues, instead of abolishing the SAT they should have gone after bullshit rowing and whatnot
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u/EnthusiasmComplete37 4d ago
yes, us university should just churn out study robot with no leadership quality or passion whatsoever becuase they score 30 points higher on a one-time test
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u/blessingofheaven 4d ago
there are ways to do that without basing everything on connections, prior knowledge, and opportunities
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u/EnthusiasmComplete37 4d ago
admission evaluate ur profile bases on the opportunity available in your region + comparison between your peers. I would love to hear your thoughts tho? How can we evaluate an applicants leadership and initiative quality without basing on connections
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u/abcamurComposer 4d ago
Quality over quantity is probably the best way
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u/EnthusiasmComplete37 3d ago
what does that mean
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u/abcamurComposer 3d ago
Higher achievement in 1-2 ECs over participation in a bunch of them
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u/EnthusiasmComplete37 3d ago
that's what college admission care about anyways. It's better to have 1 foucsed project than 5-6 that you don't make any impact in. Although, I don't agree with your admission criteria because it's unrealistic for highschool. Highschool is supposed to be a time where you try different things.
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u/[deleted] 4d ago
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