By Katie Stewart
This September I will be attending Princeton High School as a freshman. So in a rite of passage probably shared by millions of those rising to high school, I am being asked by basically everyone I meet — every relative I have ever known, every friend of my parents, every adult I encounter — if I am “excited“ about starting high school.
And while I politely answer “yes!“ with as much enthusiasm as I can muster for the expected answer, the truth is more complicated. The truth is a mix of legitimate excitement and optimism for all that high school offers, but also a lot of terror for what it brings as well.
Which brings me back to kindergarten at Cranbury School and all the friends I have known since age 5. And not just friends but everything about my school experience. My whole life I have gone to one small kindergarten through eighth grade school. This means that I have known almost all my classmates since I was 5, I haven’t had to find my way to a new classroom since I was 5, and I haven’t had to meet a new teacher since I was 5.
This is all great of course — until you’re staring down going to a place where you will have to do all these things over again. Suddenly, I’m now terrified I won’t be able to make friends, I’ll get lost wherever I go, and I won’t automatically know if I can ask a teacher for more time with a test.
My biggest worry, though, is probably the amount of homework I’ll get and the fact that once you start high school, everything counts. I’ve seen my older brother, now a rising senior, deal with all this — making new friends, finding his way around the school, and getting to know teachers. It’s all worked out fine, great even. But I’ve also seen him up until midnight doing homework and constantly worrying about how a bad score he got on one test or assignment will have a domino effect on his GPA and affect his chances at a college he wants to go to.
I’ve already accepted that I will have more homework next year than I did in middle school, I just haven’t accepted getting so much homework I’m up every night after midnight.
Also troubling me: In middle school when I got a bad grade it brought down my average in that class, but what did my average in that class really matter? In high school though, colleges will look at all your grades so that one B (even if it’s surrounded by As) could really affect you.
Of course everyone says not to get so worked up about it, but that’s not what I actually see as my brother prepares to apply for colleges and stresses over how high the average GPA’s are at the schools where he’s applying.
As I said before, though, my feelings are complicated. Yes I’m worried about all these things, but I’m also truly excited for a lot as well. I’ve already started field hockey pickup games and am enjoying meeting other girls from John Witherspoon, one of the other middle schools that sends students to PHS. I’ve also heard good things about the school newspaper and Model U.N team and plan to join those as well.
There’s a lot to look forward to as well as be nervous about, but as Andy Bernard (from “The Office”) once said, “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you left them.”
This is how I felt as I left Cranbury School, and it is how I think and sincerely hope I will feel four years from now when I leave Princeton High School.
Katie Stewart is an incoming freshman at Princeton High School
