<p>I'm in my senior year and I've noticed that through out my high school years that the level of competition in my school (especially this year + junior year) has reached suffocating heights. As kids desperately claw their way to top colleges, they will tell lies, cheat, and make up anything to enhance their chances of getting in. For instance, a girl I know struck up a deal with the senior from last year to become an officer of a major club, bypassing the election process. And perhaps even worse, the "friends" of these kids will sometimes rat on them to increase their chance of success. Betrayal and desperation creep into the day to day life of these students in very subtle ways. Competition, which should be friendly, has become the justification of acts that are - well, just plain nasty. </p>
<p>I've seen this kind of behavior at our school, and I've heard similar things from my friends at other schools. I feel as though if honor and friendship can be traded away for %rate of success of getting into a school, a lot of kids will make the deal. I'm not saying that anyone whose applying to top colleges is like this - thank God it's not even close. However, I'm starting to think that the whole getting into college thing is bringing out the worst in a lot of people. Maybe that's one of the reasons class rank was eliminated at my school (prob not the biggest reason). I'm not usually a type of person that overplays "high school drama", but this seems to be some serious stuff. Any thoughts on this? Agree/disagree? Sorry for making this rather lengthy.</p>
<p>It's a world where the dogs eat the dogs
Where they kill for the bones in the street
And God in His Heaven
He don't interfere
'Cos He's dead as the stiffs at my feet...</p>
<p>That's what happens when you place too many organisms (high schoolers) into an area with limited resources (top college slots): competitive exclusion and the extinction of the truly modest, kind, generous, and self-made Ivy League student.</p>
<p>Ha, that's one of the good things about my high school. Half of them most likely won't even end up at the community college. My school sends maybe three or four to a top college (not even ivy level) a year. There's not really much competition. The majority of college-bound people, even in the top 10, almost always go to one of the state colleges so there's no competition.</p>
<p>This sounds awful. I must be extraordinarily lucky to be in a high school that isn't like that. I read in The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins that someone in one prestigious, competitive high school actually sabotaged another student's school project.</p>
<p>In my hs, we all help each other. But yeah, like SharkObsessed said, our highest ranked students don't commonly go to "top" schools. So it's a trade-off between high school competition and college prestige? There's some argument about causation/correlation here...</p>
<p>Like SharkObsessed, I don't have to deal with that problem, due to the fact that most people inour school don't even consider applying to prestigious schools, out of the state, so I don't have to worry about stuff like that. Most people, including the top 10 at our school, are the happeist in the world if they go to UF (which is a pretty good school btw). So, I'm tahnkful to that, and because of that, people are more helpful and not worried about ranks and grades. You'll never see a valendictorian or salutorian worrying about helping each other so the other doesn't surpass them.</p>
<p>^ Same here about the valedictorian and salutatorian, except in the case of my class's val, who no one in the top 10 likes, so they all want to bring him down because he's too cocky and rude. Other than that, we will help anyone, even if it means they may get a higher rank than us.</p>
<p>But yea, not really that much competition at my school. Only like two losers who actually obsess over that stuff. Then agian, it's only about 650 student catholic school. lol. Thats fine by me though. Makes my life easier :D</p>
<p>Our school is pretty competitive, and there is a lot of cheating that goes around. But people are generally pretty nice to each other (even if they secretly hate each other) and respect each other's rights to be crazy perfectionists.</p>
<p>Pshh, wait til you apply for grad school.
And a job.
And not getting laid off from aforementioned job.
And for overtime.
And for a second job, after voluntarily leaving your first.
And for more pension and raises.</p>
<p>It goes on and on and on. Cut-throat, blood-thirsty people everywhere. That's called humanity.</p>
<p>Wow, I didn't even know that nastiness was that big of a deal. It happens all the time in my school and I'm sure in many others. It'll probably continue on in college, in your job, etc. You'll just have to learn to accept it. That's how life is and you'll just have to try to remain true to yourself and not try to get sucked up in to this type of stuff.</p>
<p>At my school, the top 40+ are all competitive with each other because we're so close in GPAs. For instance, I have a 96 and I'm ranked 34th.</p>
<p>There are kids in my class that manipulate teachers and convince them to give them credit on obviously incorrect answers on tests and such; others don't let other kids get a word in during class; some do projects together and one ends up doing SOME more work than the other person/people and then tell the teacher that the other kid didn't do anything to help out. </p>
<p>oh my goodness, lilygraces! i know exactly what you mean.those people who force the teachers to do anything and everything to get that A..it is so unfair....</p>
<p>but yeah, i find myself thinking mean thoughts all the time..even though the top people in my class are my friends..:)</p>
<p>I'm sure people in my school push themselves to work hard and do well, but there's no noticeable competition between students. I can't believe it's that rampant elsewhere.</p>
<p>And before you ask, my school sends something like 30% of each graduating class to Ivies, and most of the rest go to other great schools.</p>
<p>I never really had that problem in high school, college, or even now in graduate school. My friends have always been willing to help each other out on homeworks and projects since, well, we all know we're good enough to be successful, so what's the point of fighting? A lot more gets done when you cooperate with people, and you definitely learn a ton more when you're in a positive learning environment than one where you only care about your next homework grade.</p>
<p>As a reference, my HS sent a good number of kids to "top" schools every year (generally our top students are interested in technical fields, so Ivies aren't much of a concern).</p>
<p>Word anamai! The students that make up the top 10 are all my good friends, but they're the NASTIEST people when it comes to grades. </p>
<p>"But Mr./Ms. _____ This answer is so close to the other one! I don't think I just be penalized because the answers are so close together" (No they're not. It's painfully obvious how one is the correct answer and one is not, actually).</p>