The Overlake Hoot

The Problem, Causes, and Solutions

What is the Problem?

The competitiveness that exists amongst students at Overlake is causing more harm than good. Although some may argue that there is no problem with a little “healthy” competition, Overlake has moved far beyond that point. Through survey responses, interviews, and research, I have identified a few key problems that have been caused by Overlake’s grade hungry and overly competitive community.

• Skewed View of Success – There is a fear spreading amongst Overlake students that something as small as a C on a single test/assignment will prevent you from getting into college, which will then prevent you from getting a job, which will in turn make you homeless until at last you will forever be a disappointment to your family and yourself. It’s just a C. Students at Overlake need to understand that the grades they receive in high school aren’t the determining factor of lifetime success.

• Social Hierarchy & Self-Esteem – One student survey response stated, “I’ve seen people be laughed at, pitied and completely shut down because of a grade the(y) got because of the expectation that if you don’t have a 4.0 GPA or 100% that your worth as a human is less”. In response, Upper School Head, Gerald Buhaly explains that these behaviors have caused students to decide to leave Overlake, as this community we are creating is too toxic and anxiety provoking for them to keep up with.

• Burn Out – Director of Student Support, Susan Essex explained that a phenomenon she has only seen at Overlake is legitimate burn out in teenagers. Most Overlakers are afraid that if they do not fill their schedule and workload with endless activities and challenging courses, then they won’t reach success since they “won’t get into college”. However, the true thing that will prevent us from success is burn out before we have even set foot in the workforce, much less college.

• Academic Integrity Violations – Our community enforces false standards about the grades we should be capable of achieving. These standards are unrealistic for everyone to keep up with by themselves, which adds a pressure to cheat. Once a person cheats, cheating again feels a little easier, and can turn into a habit that is repeated throughout life. In high school the implications of cheating may not be that serious, but beyond high school they are much more impactful. One can lose scholarships or suffer expulsion from college, and in the work force, they can be fired or even sued. Cheating sets students up for failure ten times more than getting a few C’s will.

• Prevention of Learning – Why is Overlake’s education over $40k a year? It’s quality education. The Director of Teaching and Learning states that learning is a very personal feeling of understanding something deeply that you didn’t before, it’s something that can’t be measured and is only known by yourself. Students prevent learning when the focus becomes how to get a higher number than peers rather than trying to enhance understanding of concepts. School has turned into a game of “who can finesse their way to the best grades” rather than its fundamental job to teach us important concepts, mindsets, habits that we need to succeed in the future.

Why do we have this Problem?

College

Incoming Upper School Head, Marshall McCurties explained that many students at Overlake think of college as “the final step”. This idea was also demonstrated through a student survey response calling college “the end goal”. Students dedicate their extra curriculars, classes, grades, and essentially their lives for college applications. It’s as if these students believe that they will disintegrate into a pile of ashes as soon as they get college acceptance letters. However, with college acceptance rates getting lower each passing year, and test reporting becoming optional, grades are all the more important to college applications. As such, students begin to view each other as competitors rather than peers. College is seen as a limited resource, and when it feels as though there are only so many seats in a lifeboat, people fight to the death. Rather than working together to try to better ourselves, students compare grades, extra curriculars, etc. and set unrealistic standards that are harmful to our community.

Students begin to feel as if they have no chance at getting into college in comparison to the students around them. Marshall explains, “If college was the single greatest determinate in life success, the whole society would collapse. There aren’t enough seats at ‘elite’ colleges to fill the work force of even just a few big tech companies”. In addition to this statement, College Counseling Assistant, Regina Quiban explained to me that getting accepted into colleges with low acceptance rates is extremely randomized and will primarily be based on how the college is looking to expand their student body. These factors are completely out of a student’s control, so the focus should be on which college fits you, not which college has the biggest name.

Parents

A cycle shown in many Overlake students which causes this unhealthy competition starts with the parents. Students are pushed from a young age to earn good grades by their parents. These students begin to get good grades to make their parents proud and eventually earn the title of “the smart kid” in their schools. However, once these students enter Overlake, their title as “gifted” is challenged with many other A earning students. This leads to competition, comparing grades, and much more as students, with or without knowing it, fight to keep this title of “the smart kid” that they were given from a young age. Not only were students raised to believe they can get higher grades, but some are still consistently reminded by their parents to this day. One junior explained in an interview that her parents consistently compare her achievements to those of her peers. It is a losing battle since there is always going to be someone doing better than her. English 9 teacher, Jenni Baldwin explained, “In my 10 years of teaching at Overlake, this was the first year where parents regularly asked me about other students grades + performance in my classes. Of course, I did not entertain these conversations, but it speaks to the growing problem of competitiveness amongst parents too”.

Even those who don’t share the experience of having parents who pressure them suffer in the end too. One sophomore stated, “The people that do have such intense parents… they just push it into the atmosphere and we’re like, breathing in the toxic gases and it sucks. Then it’s like ‘oh I got an 86 on my test, I should just jump out of a building’”.

Gerald Buhaly stated in his interview that he believes “College” and “Parents” should be grouped into the same problem. The fact of the matter is that most Overlake students are either first- or second-generation US citizens. When parents come from different countries with different education systems than the US’, they can create false ideas about what is and is not necessary for one to get accepted into college and also on what a “good” college is. I am a daughter of two Mexican immigrants, and I have certainly seen this within my own parents. This is a problem that Overlake is working very hard to address through systems such as Parent Net. However, through having conversations with different groups of freshmen, a common theme that came across was not necessarily the problematic standards set by parents, more the problematic standards set by themselves.

Self VS. Peer Standards

One junior claims that the toxic culture of grades at Overlake can’t be fixed nor changed because it is too important to us. Students get extremely fixated on a number, and attach everything to it. Their social status, their future success as adults, their self-esteem, their identity, everything. Many students tie their identity to titles such as “gifted”, “honors students”, “smart kid”, etc. When these students are placed into a school that is almost entirely full of “honors” students, they have to fight for this title they hold so dear much harder than they used to. Students constantly define what is “good enough” based on how those who surround them are doing, fighting to be better than those around them rather than focusing on themselves. Using a number, a student earns in class and making it the equivalent to how much value they offer as a member of our society is completely wrong and ruins the purpose of school.

More than false standards around grades, students are also spreading false ideas to their peers. I have heard people say, “Teacher A teaches better and helps you learn more, but teacher B grades nicer so that’s obviously the better teacher”. Spreading false messages like this completely diminishes the entire point of a teacher’s job and reduces them down to simply the person who gives us grades. When students speak about things such as “arguing with teachers to raise their grades”, it normalizes the act of grade haggling and shifts focus from learning to grades. Speaking about certain grades with negative connotations also spreads ideas about what is and is not considered a “good” grade. Almost daily I come across one of my friends getting extremely upset, sometimes to the point of tears, over a grade that isn’t above 90 on a single assignment/test. This behavior cannot continue to be accepted as the norm. By doing so we are letting this problem grow and affect younger and younger students.

How can we fix this Problem?

A Fundamental Change

Most of the problem seems to be tied to students obsessing too much about the number on their report card. What if we got rid of it? The idea of a world without a number that we can tie our whole identity to may seem insane, but it is not out of the question. Assistant Upper School Head, Krishna Davda was the first person to introduce me to the idea of the Mastery Transcript. Gerald told me in his interview to imagine a report card identical to the ones we already received, the only difference is that the total percentage next to the course title would be gone. If Overlake stopped using exact percentages to grade students and relied entirely on the Learning Mastery system we have, students would focus more on trying to hit their learning targets rather than finessing their way to a specific percentage. Students could stop worrying about how many points a single assignment is worth. Questions could be changed from “how can I raise my grade?” to “how can I improve (insert certain skillset)?”. It may not happen immediately, but this change can subtly shift students’ mindsets to mastering specific concepts rather than only seeing a number. School can return to being about learning and growing rather than fighting to get the highest number.

While switching to the mastery transcript or changing the model of grades at Overlake could be extremely helpful to fixing our toxic culture, it is not an immediate fix. The Director of Teaching and Learning at Overlake explained that it would have to start with the Learning Leadership Collaborative agreeing to lead an effort to change the grading system at Overlake. This group would have to work with faculty, parents, and students to see if they agree with a new system, which may take a long time to do and may not even work in the end. Director of Student Support, Susan Essex, also claims that no matter what system we change to, students will still find a way to compete, so we have to do more work beyond simply eliminating grades to eradicate the culture of competitiveness.

What We Can Do Now

For parents who were raised with different education systems than those in the US, Parent Net is a great option. Susan Essex runs Parent Net, a system Overlake created to help parents gain a better understanding of how the education and college systems in the US work. When asking my own mother about interest in these meetings, she said she would love to go but these emails she receives from the school are simply another email in her inbox so we as students need to do a better jobs of marketing this to our parents.

The school and teachers have already done so much to try to get students to change our mindsets. Susan Essex explains that designing classes with more project-based assignments and less tests could be helpful in getting students to focus on learning more rather than a number. Changing requirements for getting into classes from being a percentage to hitting learning targets could also help massively reduce stress in students and put emphasis on expanding knowledge rather than a percentage. Jenni Baldwin also suggests that teachers should work together more to call out students when comparing grades, and remind students that “we are all on our own journey”. As a student body, students need to acknowledge all of the hard work that teachers and administrative staff are already doing to address this problem, and we have to now act ourselves.

If I can leave one final message for any students who read this article, it would be to find balance. Reflect right now: how many times did you ask someone today what they got on a test/assignment? How many times did you check your canvas grades today? Have you ever gone to a teacher to discuss changing your grade? Have you defined which class you take/how much you like a teacher based on how “nicely” they grade? If so, then you are part of the problem. I am not going to tell you to stop trying in your classes or to stop caring about your grades. However, the level of anxiety and stress we are putting on ourselves and on our friends is completely unnecessary and counterproductive. As I explained in the first section of this article, we are causing so much harm to our community and to ourselves by putting so much emphasis on grades. Please, save yourself and your friends from pain and learn to think about something other than your grades for once. We are all worth so much more than the number on our transcript.