The new year is officially here—the Class of 2024’s graduation year! In just four short months, after four years of high school, the seniors will be walking across the stage to receive their diplomas.
Since the last installment, the seniors who applied early have heard back from various colleges. Many institutions across the country released their early admission decisions during the second half of the week of December 11th, 2023, the last week of the first semester for Parker students.
Some seniors have gotten acceptances and are officially committed, while others are still waiting to hear back from more colleges before they must make their decision of where to commit by May 1st, 2024–-college decision day.
Lincoln Green, a senior, applied to one college and was accepted. He has chosen to commit to a private college in Rexburg, Idaho. He is excited to attend a school that is close to where he grew up in Utah, but has a different landscape. “I’ve been away from home for six years,” said Green. “I feel like I’ve been in Hawaii long enough and I’m excited to go back to the mountains, kind of in a new spot, somewhat familiar, but something that I can explore more of.”
Admittedly, Green has had some second thoughts about committing, but he doesn’t view his decision of where to attend college as permanent by any means. “I don’t really know if I’m going to go there forever right? I could do a trade school option” said Green. “I think it’s really important to have things open and if it doesn’t end up working out then there is no reason in staying for the whole time.” For now he is relieved to have the application process out of the way.
After going through the process of applying to schools, seniors have had various personal realizations and shifts in their perspectives regarding college.
“College is a very interesting thing and it will probably surprise me even when I get there how different it’s going to be,” said Green. “I think this place is very similar to some colleges though because I’m actually paying a higher tuition to go here than I will at college but I've been able to get a really high quality education here so I’m looking forward to [furthering my education] somewhere else.”
Mika Groode, another senior, has applied to eleven colleges in total and has heard back from two. She got accepted into one and deferred from the other. “I was kind of sad about my deferment because I think it was one of my top choices,” said Groode.
The experience of being deferred taught her that “College itself is very competitive and getting in [is very competitive],” said Groode. However, “It doesn’t really reflect on me like I’m not good enough to get in. Yeah I am sure that they accept more people that they see are the best fit for their school, but in a way it can be a little bit random.”
Before hearing back from schools, “I had very high hopes and I wasn’t thinking very realistically about it and now I’m kind of thinking realistically like I’m probably not going to get into most of the challenging low-acceptance rate colleges that I’m applying to,” said Groode.
Ultimately getting deferred motivated Groode to apply to six more colleges. In addition to the eleven she already applied to, Groode is applying to one more college in Israel which has an application deadline later in March.
Out of all the prompts they answered for college apps, these seniors had their favorites.
Green’s favorite was: “Name a quality that you couldn’t live without, like a talent or a skill that influences who you are,” he said. In response, Green enjoyed discussing his love of music. “It’s been a part of my life since I was a little kid,” he said.
Groode’s favorite prompt asked the applicant “What was something that you spoke about with someone that has a different perspective than you that changed your mind?” she said. “I really like talking to people with different perspectives than my own because I think that for me that is the best way to learn. Everytime I have a really strong belief I always question it,” said Groode.
Follow the newly created Parker senior destination instagram page to keep up to date on where Parker School’s class of 2024 ends up and stay tuned for part four of College Chronicles, coming soon in the next couple of months!
*Both student interviews were conducted on January 19th, 2024