By: Artem Dolgushev

   Internships, sports, clubs, competitions. These are all seemingly necessities to high school students in order to even have a chance to get into a college now. Nowadays, it seems as if grades matter less than ever on college applications, and students are expected to do so much more purely to stand out.

   A common blame for this phenomenon is grade inflation, the increase in the amount of students who have perfect or near perfect grades, even in very difficult classes. This is commonly attributed to classes getting easier as a whole, and teachers becoming more forgiving in regards to the rigor of their class.

   “My classes are easier than they used to be, teachers are caving to students complaining,”  senior Tyler Solomon said.

   Many teachers have also become more lenient, as parents and students expect A’s in all their classes, even more difficult ones. This results in teachers being pressured to give easier work and grade more lightly in order to prevent confrontation with parents and students.

   Another thing that grade inflation can be attributed to is the boom of AI. Students having easy access to smart and efficient AI leads to students being able to complete assignments with 100% accuracy within a fraction of the time it used to take. Things like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Deepseek have now become vital to some students.

    However, grade inflation impacts students in other ways. Many are now pressured to pursue an unnecessary amount of extracurricular and cocurricular activities, putting immense pressure on students to do these activities to stand out on college applications. 

“Extracirriculars really matter because even if you have a 4.0, you’re still really pressured to have good extracurriculars for college,” sophomore Liv Maggio commented.

    Students have also turned to standardized tests to show their intelligence to colleges. The SAT, ACT, and ASVAB have become much more important on college applications, now standing as a centerpiece rather than a supplemental part of one’s application.

   As a whole, students are now required to have more depth and nuance in their application, with extracurriculars, clubs and standardized testing.

   “I feel that there’s a lot of pressure now for me to stand out on my college application, which is really difficult. It seems as if everyone has perfect grades and great test scores and internships and stuff,” senior Kip Khaja-Phillips remarked.

   Such pressure to pursue a large amount of extracurricular and co-curricular activities leads many students to miss out on truly experiencing high school, and the social aspects. When students need to have time for multiple clubs, internships, and academic events, they simply cannot allot time to activities they actually enjoy. 

   “A lot of my free time goes to making sure I have stuff to put on my college application,”  Khaja-Phillips stated.

   Grades are a delicate balance between ensuring that students’ futures aren’t ruined over poor performance in school, but also ensuring that grades can be a marker for a student’s academic ability and college capability. Ultimately, grades need to reflect both effort and understanding, serving as a tool to indicate growth rather than simply a judgment of worth.