Grades are important to all students. It determines if they will graduate, whether they can participate in extracurricular activities or not, and compares them to their peers. Class ranks sort everyone by how much they have accomplished academically.
Most students aim to get as close to the top as they can in hopes of looking as good as they possibly can to colleges, and while it’s rarely acknowledged verbally, academic competition does exist. This competitive atmosphere at Steinbrenner is especially felt by those at the top of their classes. However, as surprising as it may seem, not everyone at the top is cutthroat competitive. Take Cole Aiken for example, a sophomore who is number six in his class. While he is well aware of his status and strives to do more to become attractive to colleges, he is not throwing himself into a plethora of AP or dual enrollment classes just to buff up his GPA.
“It’s not like if I’m not a specific rank in the class, I’m going to be distraught,” said Aiken.
According to a study conducted by Concordia University, a competitive classroom setting can encourage a student to bring forth their best effort and prepares a student for any competition they will encounter in the real world. Giving students rankings and comparing them to their peers showcases this. Class ranks are ways to see who is punching above their weight and those who are simply doing the bare minimum to graduate.
Grant LoPresti, the potential Salutatorian of the senior class, sees his class rank as a personal achievement from all the time and effort he put in to make it happen. He, like Aiken, takes difficult classes more so for his own personal gains than any need to be better than anybody.
Despite this case, competition still exists. This lack of real ruthless competitiveness indicates that everyone who is competitive does so for personal gains as opposed to simply boost their ego. It is what motivates students like Aiken, who challenge themselves to take hard classes in subjects that could be helpful towards a major in college or a desired career. LoPresti considers any competition among the top 20 students more on the friendly rival side; where everyone tries their hardest, but no real hard feelings occur.
“The senior class this year is probably one of the most competitive classes we’ve had, but probably the whole top 20-30 people are all friends with each other, and we all like each other, so there’s no hard feelings. Because we’re friends, we’re always trying to beat each other. In that degree, there’s always that fun level of competition,” said LoPresti.
While they are taking challenging classes, trying their best, and feeling the competition, highly achieving students are just high school students trying to do their best. Class rankings hold no real bearing on the students that were already going to try their hardest to begin with even if there was no class ranking system at all.
Aliya Leary // Staff Writer
