“March winds and April showers bring all the Maytime flowers.” In high schools all across the nation, these winds are admissions, the showers are the decisions made afterwards and the flowers are the final sighs of relief as seniors finalize their post-high school plans. But this year, those tumultuous, stormy March winds don’t seem so bad.
A word only whispered, never discussed openly, has recently become a more comfortable and less feared topic: college. The taboo around the subject that was imposed at the start of the year has finally given way to tentative, yet open and supportive discussion.
The stigma that every PHS student must go to the best college possible, or that PHS students are expected to be accepted into all of their top schools is finally fading, allowing for some of the college pressure to lessen.
Don’t get us wrong, there are still expectations for students to work hard to fulfill a successful future, but we feel that expectation no longer is forced upon us, or made into a competition between students.
Our editorial board certainly cannot speak for the entire senior class, but we should not allow Piedmont stereotypes to either. Through our admittedly limited experiences, we have noticed a more tight-knit, familiar group of peers alongside us than the one we were previously led to believe festers at PHS during college admissions season. Rather than prestige-obsessed students gloating over Ivy League acceptances or making condescending remarks about options other than four year colleges, we found supportive classmates and open-minded, friendly conversations.
Our community has begun to create a supportive environment that allows for the discussion of failures and rejections, not solely focused on the achievements and acceptances of students. This new discussion has allowed some of the college stress to decrease, as students begin to realize that they are not the only ones who were not accepted into all of their schools, and that rejections are normal, not something to be ashamed of.
It’s worth noting that we could simply be observing a surface-level politeness — the college prestige complex may be alive and well in the internal mindsets of students. After all, Piedmont has a long history of academic success. Still, this would be a step in the right direction.
And just because April showers might not be torrential, rejection-induced tears, doesn’t mean the flowers on June 1 won’t be as bright. In fact, they might even be brighter.