Unspoken Grade 12 Truths I Stopped Gatekeeping: Advice From a High School Teacher
The hallway outside my 11th grade classroom still smells like the soccer team’s post-practice Gatorade and the lemon cleaner the custodian uses at 3:30. I’m shoving midterm essays into my canvas tote, wiping a coffee ring off my desk, when Mia leans against my doorframe, twisting her rubber bracelet around her wrist. “Can I ask you something?” she says. “Is it true that teachers don’t tell us everything we need to know for 12th grade, just to keep us stressing and working harder?” I stop mid-tuck of an essay. She’s right. I’ve been gatekeeping for 12 years, ever since my first year teaching when my department head pulled me aside and said “don’t show them all the cards early, they’ll check out.” That stuck. I’ve repeated the same generic, stress-inducing advice to every rising 12th grader: Get all your college essays done before labor day. Pad your resume with as many activities as you can. Every grade counts, even second semester. But lately, I’ve been talking to old students, watching my current kids burn out by October, and I’m done holding back.
The biggest lie I’ve repeated for years is that you need to knock out all your college applications over summer break. I had a student last year, Jake, who skipped his family’s annual lake trip to write four full drafts in July. By the time October rolled around, he’d changed his mind about three of the schools he was applying to, and hated all his old essays so much he had to start over anyway, staying up until 1 a.m. for two weeks straight. The truth is, most 17-year-olds don’t even know what they want to write about in June, right after they finish a chaotic junior year. The practical thing I tell kids now is: If you want to do something over summer, spend 20 minutes writing three short lists. Ten small moments that stuck with you from the past year (yes, even the time you stayed up all night fixing your friend’s broken bike counts). Five things you love doing that aren’t for a grade or a resume. Three weird little skills you have (changing a tire, folding origami, memorizing all the lines to Mean Girls). That’s it. No full drafts. No 40 hours of work before your summer even starts.
The second thing I gatekeep is that you don’t need a long laundry list of activities to get into college. I can’t tell you how many kids I’ve seen stay in clubs they hate, skip family events, skip time with friends, just because they think it will look good to admissions. Mia told me she joined peer tutoring this semester even though she hates leading study groups, just because she thought it would impress the pre-nursing program she’s applying to. She was going to quit art club, which she’s been in for four years, just to make time for it. I told her to flip that: Drop the tutoring, keep the art. Adcoms would rather see that you stuck with something you care about for four years than check a box you added at the last minute. In 12 years, I’ve never seen a kid get rejected because they only had three solid activities, but I’ve seen plenty of kids burn out because they tried to do 10. The simple rule I share now: If you’re debating dropping something, ask yourself one question: Does this take time away from something I actually care about? If the answer is yes, drop it. You don’t even need to explain the choice on your application.
This next truth is the one that makes other teachers side-eye me, but it’s still true: Second semester senior year grades almost never matter for kids who already have their acceptances. We all repeat the line “colleges can rescind your acceptance!” And they can, but that only happens if you stop going to class entirely, or fail three or more core classes. In 12 years, I’ve never had a student get their acceptance rescinded for getting a B in AP Physics second semester, or even a C. Kids kill themselves worrying about every quiz, miss prom committee meetings, skip time with friends they won’t see next year, all for a grade that doesn’t change anything. The practical tip for parents and kids here: Keep showing up, turn in your work, don’t drop from straight A’s to straight F’s, but it’s okay to shift some of your energy to the people and moments you’ll actually remember 10 years from now. For parents, that means don’t nag your kid about every minor quiz grade once their acceptance letters are in hand.
I also stopped gatekeeping that it’s totally fine if you don’t know what you want to major in right now. Half of all college freshmen change their major within the first two years, and that’s normal. We act like picking a major at 17 is a life-or-death decision, but it’s not. If your kid says they don’t know, don’t panic and force them to pick something just for the application. Just ask them one question: “What’s one class you didn’t mind getting up for this year?” That’s enough to start with. You don’t need a 40-year career plan before you graduate high school.
This gatekeeping didn’t start out as me being cruel. It started out as me passing on what I was told, because we all buy into this myth that 12th grade has to be the most stressful year of your life, that if you don’t push 100% every single day you’ll ruin your future. But when I met my former student Lila for coffee last month, five years after she graduated, she told me the thing she regrets most about 12th grade was missing her best friend’s 18th birthday party because she was studying for a second semester midterm that didn’t change her acceptance, didn’t change anything. She still thinks about that party, and that regret sticks with her way more than any grade or any application line ever could.
I talked to Mia earlier this week. She dropped the peer tutoring, kept art club, and wrote her college essay in October about the time she painted a mural on the back of the art room wall with her favorite teacher, the one who retired last year. It’s good, she said, way better than the one she was forcing herself to write in June. I still don’t know if she’ll get into that pre-nursing program she wants. No one can promise that. But I do know that this year, she’s not spending every waking minute stressed out over things that don’t actually matter. I’m still going to hold my students accountable. I’m still going to help them edit their essays and study for midterms. But I’m done lying to them about what matters. Gatekeeping just keeps everyone stressed out, for no reason. The future’s still going to be what it’s going to be, whether you stress over every tiny decision this year or not.
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