When we first heard about Summit and Portfolio, our honest reaction was, “Does the school hate us?” Here was this extra thing, which nobody would see, on top of everything we were doing that actually affected college admissions. I mean, why? To distract us? Keep us from putting in maximum effort into our schoolwork and extracurricular activities?
Summit and Portfolio, for those who don’t know, are a new initiative where we can either submit several pieces a year aligning to our core values or (for seniors) begin a broader yearlong project in line with them. According to its creators, it is a “place to show your growth over time” and a tool to use in college and job applications. But perhaps our initial reactions were too stressed. So, we’ve interviewed a host of students to get their thoughts.
Gavin Rothe, a senior, says he wishes that there could be “some way in which it would directly benefit the student.” Student Body President Stefani Munoko, for her part, says that while she “understands and appreciates” the need to develop a portfolio and supports “building that system for underclassmen now,” she believes that “requiring seniors” to submit entries during an “already demanding college app season” is not “the most supportive approach.”
Annu Baig, a sophomore, agrees, arguing that it’s “not necessary” and that there’s “no point and no incentive to do it,” so this is not just a perspective held by upperclassmen. Students’ opinions are really not positive. Mr. Hodgin, asked, thinks it’s a “really cool, potentially really valuable initiative” that will eventually become a “hallmark” of what we do, but he understands that in its introduction, because it’s so new, he sees why “students, and maybe some faculty,” may be “taking a little while to warm up to it.” He may be right, but the fact is that most projects need to have a purpose. And this does not.
Junior year and the part of senior year before college applications are due are meant to be the hardest parts of high school, not to mention the fact that many of us are pushing ourselves harder with our responsibilities as student leaders and in clubs. Our schedules are already packed with things to do relating to school, extracurriculars, and our social life. But now in the middle of our high school years, we’re supposed to start a yearlong project that extends to next year? Our main question about this entire project is its purpose. They say it’s something to show off to colleges or something to look back on to keep track of your progress in school. However, we find this to be completely and utterly redundant.
Colleges, after all, only really look at your grades, extracurriculars, and awards. You can submit additional material, but it is not really necessary. And certainly nobody in the work world cares. So the portfolio isn’t even serving one of its main purposes. How well does it serve its other proposed purpose? Honestly, although it does show a clear path of one’s work to look back on, it’s ultimately useless. Its purpose implies the idea that after a school year ends we just forget everything we learned and don’t retain any memory of it all, which is completely false. At the end of each school year, each person has a general idea of how they did academically, as well as how they may have grown over the course of the year. We are nearly adults, and we should be able to look back on our past and judge ourselves.
If we could have other people in the school see our projects, perhaps it could be fun to put it together. But they’re going into the abyss. It seems like grunt work, more than anything else. And that benefits nobody.