Increased Participation in Class Elections Linked to the College Process

By Winson Ye and Brian Yoffe

In today’s world, applying to college is a rigorous four year process in which students must work tirelessly throughout high school in order to distinguish themselves from the vast competition that is their friends and peers.

According to Ivywise, this year’s college acceptance rates hit a record low with some schools accepting as few as five percent of its applicants.

With this competition comes a higher standard from colleges. Subsequently, students are expected not only to receive good grades and have high SAT and ACT scores, but also be involved in a wide variety of extracurricular activities.

Two of such extracurricular activities at South are class office and the Newton South Senate.

Guidance counselor David Kershaw believes that these positions, especially class president, look great on a college resume.

“Establishing yourself as a leader in your college resume is definitely a factor that students consider when running for class president,” Kershaw said. “I’ve had kids ask me if running for class president would be helpful, and I responded that it would certainly be helpful on a lot of levels.”

The class office and South Senate elections for the class of 2016 received much attention this past week as 12 students ran for five class office seats and 16 ran for eight South Senate seats. This is a considerable increase from the five students who ran for president and 10 who ran for Senate last year.

This sudden spike in competition has raised some controversy over whether students running for positions are solely running for college.

The Class of 2016 president, Noa Leiter, attributes the increase in competition to students looking to boost their college resumes.

“I’d say probably more than fifty percent of the class officers are doing it for college, since I know most of them and they’re really high-achievers,” Leiter said. “Some of the competitive candidates may not know the responsibility or what even being a president is beyond the college aspect.”

Sophomore Anna Kim, who has been on South Senate since freshman year, agrees with Leiter and believes that the rise in competition is due to students’ concerns over whether they have enough extracurriculars for college.

Sophomore Tyler Smith* ran for South Senate this year and admits that his decision to run for the first time was solely to have another extracurricular activity on his college application.

“It took over the whole [decision]. It’s the whole reason why I’m running,” Smith said.

Smith feels that the other South senate candidates have the same motivation and only ran for college.

“People are doing it for college. South senate is just a name. It’s a way of people saying… ‘I was a part of student government.’ [It] makes them look better,” Smith said.

Kim admits that she ran for South Senate freshman year in order to add it to her college resume. However, she ran for South Senate this year with a goal of invoking changes that will make the school a better place.

“I’ve actually been doing Senate since freshman year, and I feel like it’s a really effective way to change some of the problems that are happening for students,” Kim said. “I definitely have been running again each year because it has become something that is important to me.”

Kershaw does not attribute the spike in competition to college, but the publicity that South Senate and class office received when students heard their current senators and class officers talking about their positions.

“The increased interest is probably due to visibility. It’s sort of like a snowball effect, where people hear others talking about it [the affairs of the South Senate and the class officers] and it may not have been something they had considered in the past,” Kershaw said.

The classes of 2015 and 2017 did not experience similar increases in competition, with only five and 12 people running for South Senate respectively.

Junior Haley Eagle has been a class officer for the past three years and has not noticed significant competition during that time; however, she did hear that several of her classmates running this year are doing so solely for college.

“It actually really upset me that I knew people who were running junior year for the purpose of having it on their college resume because that is not the purpose of being a class officer,” Eagle said.

Eagle was surprised to hear about the competition for the class of 2016 student government and class office positions and attributes the large race to students trying to get involved in more extracurricular activities in the year before applying to college.

Junior Peter Klapes, who ran for third term on South Senate this past week, is concerned that many people elected to be on South Senate will not actually be interested in their position and its commitments.

“I think that if people are doing this solely for college applications, then that’s definitely a bad thing. We want people who are interested in this and people who know what it means to be a senator,” Klapes said.

Despite the controversy, some students and faculty believe that the increase in competition is beneficial to the election process.

South Senate adviser Steven Rattendi feels that the competition in the elections for the class of 2016 have overall contributed to a more interesting campaigning and election process.

“There have been times in the past when we have had many uncontested elections, and so I look at the number of candidates running this year as a positive force for just making a more lively campaign,” Rattendi said. “I’m not concerned if they’re doing this [running for Senate and class office] just for college, as long as they are committed to doing the work.”

Sophomore Alex Song, who just ran for his second term as a senator, believes that the competition will also force people who get elected to work harder to achieve their goals.

“With so many people, you have to be special, and whoever ends up getting nominated has a lot more pressure to do a good job because there were so many others didn’t get the position,” Song said.

Klapes, however, worries that the competition may lead people to vote solely for students who have the best campaigns, as opposed to those who will be most productive and best represent the student body.

“A definite concern of mine is with the competition this year for the Sophomore class, which might lead to…voting for people based on has the best posters and who campaigns the best, but not those who are the most productive and most willing to serve the students,” Klapes said.

*Name has been changed at source’s request.