STAMFORD — Many students set towering academic expectations for themselves when entering high school, immersing themselves in a rigorous curriculum and aiming for that dazzling 4.0 grade-point average.
However, when faced with the challenges of maintaining this perfection, students tend to get lazy and very few actually follow through with these goals. This leaves only a couple of students, fortunate to have exceptional persistence and stellar work ethic, with this craved 4.0.
It is no secret that maintaining a 4.0 average is demanding, but many people don’t actually recognize the sacrifices that these straight-A students have to make.
So what are these sacrifices?
I talked to three high-achieving Stamford High School juniors trying to tackle the most important and difficult year of their high school careers to see what their day-to-day life is like.
Along with keeping up phenomenal grades, the three students were all involved with extracurricular activities, taking on leadership positions in school clubs and becoming active members of the SHS community.
Even though these clubs serve as a nice break from the constant state of academia, they can become very time consuming and leave limited time for studying —not to mention free time.
“I truly love all of the activities I participate in, but it leaves me little time to do other things I love like bake, play the piano and read,” junior Samantha Heller said.
Clubs ranging from band, sports, student government, volunteering, and more consume the time of SHS students, who often have to stay up late to finish their schoolwork.
Arriving home as late as around 7 p.m. is an obstacle these students have learned to work around. Whether it is not eating dinner with their families, isolation from their friends, or not watching TV, these students find a way to make it work.
Joan Perez, who juggles various activities, is annoyed she “simply can’t see my friends because there aren’t enough hours in the day.”
“I also literally never watch TV,” Heller said. “Because of the snow day (last week), I watched Netflix for the first time since August.”
In addition to leisure, these students also sacrifice sleep. It’s common to see plenty of sleep-deprived students in Stamford High AP classes.
For these students, grades trump sleep, and they view sleep as just another sacrifice they need to make to keep up their grades.
On a particularly busy day, Rohith Naralasetty describes “stocking up on about two coffees at home after my clubs. Then I work until 12 and wake up at 4 in order to finish off any work.”
Taking a deeper look into the schedules of these tenacious students poses a very large question: Why do they pursue their education with such intensity?
Obviously, all of these students plan to attend college, but there are definitely plenty of great schools that don’t require a 4.0.
“As students, school is our job, it is our responsibility,” Perez said.
Straight-A students are just the people who take their job more seriously than others. For many students, parental pressure, along with the need for a scholarship, is enough to keep them motivated.
“I don’t want my 4.0 GPA so I can get into a good college as much as I want it because I know I am capable of having it,” Heller said. “The challenge for me will be figuring out which schools I would thrive in the best, whether it has a 14 percent percent acceptance rate or 45 percent acceptance rate doesn’t matter.”
Sydney Rubin is a Stamford High student and writer for the school’s newspaper, The Round Table.