FAQ for high school graduating seniors

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a high school senior graduating in May. Most folks ask him three of the same four questions.

  1. Are you having a good senior year?

  2. Are you graduating soon?

  3. Are you taking a road trip this summer?

  4. Have you decided where you are going to college?

He’s sending a little letter out to family and dear friends. He has a fun quirky sense of humor and mentioned including a F.A.Q and answer type letter. In the idea this would have had funny answers rather than correct ones, but he really does need to let some folks know his plan as it is a tad different than one side of the family expects. It’s a good plan and he has his parents support, just one side of the family is going to be a bit surprised.

So graduating seniors and those who greaduated recently enough to remember; What were the questions you were asked forty bazillion times during your last month of high school?

2

Mostly it was "You’re graduating?? Are you sure ??:confused: "

As I understand it, there was some doubt pretty much up until the ceremony.

3

“What’s your class rank?” But that was mostly because the vast majority of people I graduated with and a substantial portion of my family are single-minded twats.

I, in a way, didn’t quite do what was “expected” of me college-wise (at a weird, weird school and not majoring in poli-sci/journalism as expected). A lot of the questions I got were the more or less unanswerable “But, why?”

Info about plans for the summer, definitely.

A lot of family members asked me if I would miss high school, if I’d had a good time, etc.

“How are exams going?”/“WHat exams are you taking?”

4

Surprisingly, lots of adults seemed to want to know which fraternity I was going to join in college. For years, I loved telling people that I was hoping to put a good punk band together instead.

5

Aaack. Also: “Do you know what you want to go into/major in?”

6

Oh yeah, everyone was dying to know if I was going to miss high school, or what my favorite parts of it were, or if I knew those would be the best years of my life.

  1. Not for a minute.
  2. Getting my diploma and never looking back.
  3. Then I might as well kill myself now.
7

Thankfully, I never got those questions, but those would have been exactly my answers (whoever said that high school is the best years of your life lied).

Actually, I never got many questions, from anybody. Just the standard “So have you decided what you’re doing next year?” Or, if they had time to kill, “Are you going to university?” “Where?” (Sometimes closely followed by “Where’s that?”–it’s not a large school) and “What are you taking?” I also often got (and still get) “How many years will that take?”

8

Do note that this is from scary Asian relatives, so adjust your perception accordingly.

“What’s your gpa?”

“Which college are you going to?”

“Will you graduate with honors?”

“What is your class rank?”

“Do all your friends have lower gpas than you?”

“Why didn’t you apply to _____? Aren’t you smart enough to get into there?”
Demands that are said right after questions are answered:

“Don’t date until after college.”

“Don’t gain weight in the dorms.”

“Study hard because we pay for your tuition.”

9

Yikes! Sorry your family and friends weren’t a tad more supportive and encouraging.

Yeah, the only people asking this are people who are sure their kids were ranked higher. There are some second cousins who live in a small town and attended a high school with a graduating class smaller than our son’s Sunday School class. I am sure they had less than 25 graduates and one was ranked two and the other in the top four or five. TeenSthrnAccents graduating class has over 900 if I remember correctly. The class photo is absurdly long. He’s done very well in school and in the top 20% taking honors math (5 years of math in 4 years) and science classes. But his class rank at 221 sounds rather poor doesn’t it? (My class rank was 219 and I only had a B+ average. I was in a very large class of around 700 if I remember right.) His GPA is over 4 in a 4.0 system. How’s that for ridiculous?

What he has planned is not unexpected for us, we’ve known his desires for quite awhile, but part of the family may not be so supportive, so letting everyone know before they make the trip down for the ceremony gives them the option of not coming if they don’t approve of his immediate plans for the future.

He wanted to take a road trip with his best buddy, but then accepted so many life guarding, pool managing, and assistant coaching offers, I don’t know how they are going to find time!

Thanks for the heads up on this one. He does have a “story”. I don’t know if he’ll want to share it though. He could have graduated early and skipped senior year, but opted to stay in school to play his sports for another year. He was assaulted at school the day of the regional tournament and the week before the state finals and didn’t get to play due to a facial injury. They did ok, 3rd. But he didn’t get to play and for him it was the playing that mattered as much as being on the team. That coupled with waiting too late to ask the dreamy brown eyed girl to prom and getting turned down due to scheduling conflicts, have made him feel his senior year was pretty much a disappointment. He may miss his best buddies, but he will not be missing high school.

Wow, I’d have never thought of this one. Thanks for the heads up. I’ve never heard him mention being interested in a fraternity, although he’s going to be a pilot so if there is an international brotherhood of aviators, I would guess that’s the one he’ll look into.

Got this one covered, he’s know since he was three that he’s going to be a pilot, so his major is Commercial Aviation, professional pilot track. He’s going to minor in Computer Technical or Technician something. He knows what the something is, I’ve forgotten.

Pretty much the same as his answers with the exception of three. He’s a happy kid at home and in our community, just not had a joyful high school experience. Not that he had a bad time, in spite of the assault, I am sure he wasn’t one of the kids who gets picked on and teased a lot. He wasn’t hugely popular, but he had a solid core group of like minded friends who were honor student/atheletes/geeks and cool with it. The assault was a weird thing with an angry young man who thought that one of the exits to the school lunchroom was for use only by one race (maybe even only by members of one gang, but the school isn’t admitting that part) and that if someone of another race (or not in the gang) used that exit it was “dissing” all the students of that particular race (or gang). Unfortunately, my kid was unaware of the unwritten rule about that exit and was taking the door nearest the honors biology class he was headed to, and incurred the wrath of one very disturbed young man. Fortunately for us there were so many people who saw what happened that our son’s integrity and actions were well vouched for and that “zero” tolerance thing where both boys in an altercation get thrown out of school, no matter who started it didn’t apply due to the way he was assaulted. I’m certain he knows that high school are rarely the best years of someone’s life and that if they are, then sad for the person who peaked so early.