Twenty years ago the picture of a high school student would be of a group of teenagers excitedly socializing with one another. If you were to fast forward to 2011, that picture would be of an isolated adolescent with bags under their eyes and a pile of work to do. It is true that there is still a population of happily relaxed and social high school students. But the college competitiveness of this generation has created “The Honors student”; a student who sacrifices their sleep, social life, and overall well-being today for a better and easier tomorrow.

A study done by CollegeBoard.com, through the past nine years the number of high school students who had taken at least one AP class has increased by 55,000 students. Currently there are more than 165,000 high school students enrolled in Advanced Placement and Honors classes. We as students either have friends enrolled in these AP classes, or are one of those 165,000. I, like you, watch as my friends go to parties and stay out late on the weekends, while we try to catch up on the sleep we lost during the week doing work for my Honors and AP classes. We know that the world doesn’t care about whom we were friends with in high school, or if we were at Stephanie’s super sweet sixteen and saw Billy kiss Jamie. We have fixated eye on the future. We know that in order to be able to compete with the thousands of other students applying for spots in the best colleges we have to be the perfect student. The one with the highest grades, involved in the most teams and clubs, and the one who decided to take the most AP and Honors classes.

We are fully aware of the amount of work that comes with these classes, and the sacrifices that we will have to make, but we know that these sacrifices are a necessity in the shaping of a bright and prosperous future. That is what makes us honors students. Not getting straight A’s or volunteering for every cause we can, but, because unlike the other 83.1% of students, we have the strength to push ourselves to greatness. We know what it takes to be the best, and we are willing to do the work to be the best. We have a grasp on reality, and try not to slip into the endless loop of monotonous mediocrity. We know that the real world, the world outside of the florescent hallways of our high school, is demanding and hard; and we know that we must prepare ourselves for the rest of our lives. The work we do now prepares us to take on the challenges of life, to allow us to follow whatever path we choose, and steer clear of the cubicles, and straight into careers that we can use to better the world. We have followed Generation X, a generation who work to live rather than live to work; they are not very hard working and are extremely self-interested. An Honors student embraces the hopeful characteristics of the Millennial Generation, open and eager. We are ready for our futures to happen, we want the prosperous lives our parents had, and the successfulness of our baby boomer parents creates a pressure within us to succeed. And although we sometimes let the pressure overwhelm us and consume us, we are still bright and hopeful, prepared for tomorrow.