Credit: Alyssa Ao

Although the next school year is over five months away, students’ access to course selections opened on Monday, March 17 on WHS’s online gradebook, Home Access Center (HAC). In the past week, students have been given information about classes that are offered next year.

Continuing from the 2023 policy, students’ decisions regarding their course selections are being prioritized more so than their teachers recommendations. When students log into their HAC account, they are met with a range of class options they are eligible to choose for the following school year. Although teachers still make class recommendations for their students, there are no longer grade prerequisites for which classes students are able to take. This means that students can choose a class that their teacher did not recommend.

“[I’ve heard] people talking about wanting to take Advanced Placement [classes], which stresses me out because I don’t know if that’s what I want to do,” sophomore Grace Oppenheim said. “I’m also wondering if I’m doing too much or too little.”

As students select their classes for next year, the jump in courses between grades, whether a level change or not, can weigh heavy on the minds of WHS students.

“I feel a little bit stressed because it’s junior year, and it’s my last year to really shift colleges’ idea of what [classes] I can do,” sophomore Olivia Fountain said. “[Upperclassmen] say that everything gets harder and I definitely think that will be true.”

With different level choices of introductory, college preparatory, honors and Advanced Placement (AP), students can feel stuck between taking classes that may appeal better to colleges rather than the classes they may be more passionate about.

“I think students put a lot of stress on themselves and they get it from different avenues, whether it’s competition with friends or family,” history teacher Timothy Glavin said. “I think sometimes if you’re concerned about which classes you should take there’s nothing wrong with taking a college prep class if it’s one of your less passionate courses. You could be awesome at something, but if you’re not gonna put passion into it and you’re worried about the stress load, put your honor’s classes in what you’re most interested in.”

Some classes offer a combination of both honors and college where students in different levels learn together but the testing and grading are different depending on what level is taken. Although this isn’t the case for all classes, one of the advantages of being a part of these classes is having the option to drop or switch the level of the course if it becomes too demanding or too easy without impacting your schedule.

“I think teachers put a lot of time into their thoughts of their recommendations, and I hope that students follow the recommendations generally of the teachers because we’re hoping to put them into the best scenario for their next year class,” Glavin said.