The pressures of college admissions and future careers force students to strategically choose activities that will best grab a college’s attention. Some students devote themselves to an activity and try to excel at it while others strive to be well-rounded by participating in as many activities as possible. Even though these approaches help with college admissions, many students end up missing out on a once-in-a-lifetime high school experience.
For Martin Stegemoeller, Malcom K. and Minda Brachman Master Teaching Chair, the issue is not how many activities a student lists on a resume, but whether they actually understood what they have learned. Both the “spike” and the “well-rounded” student can fall into the same trap substance-lacking performance.
“We have kids at St. Mark’s who retain almost nothing of what they learn. We have kids at St. Mark’s who are unbelievably knowledgeable,” Stegemoeller said. “And they both got A’s in their classes. To me, to have a kid who’s great at volleyball, who’s not knowledgeable in math, not knowledgeable in literature, not knowledgeable in science. That’s a tragedy.”
Senior Oliver Geheb believes being well-rounded is promoted, but it’s often misconstrued and leads to students overbooking themselves.
“I know a lot of people who are in a ton of activities, and they have this crazy-looking resume, but they put about 40 percent of their effort into everything they do. So, they look like they’re super well-rounded, but they don’t actually have anything that they can really do or they really try at,” Geheb said. “I would rather somebody focus on doing one thing if they’re gonna do a ton of stuff and do it all poorly.”
To truly reap the benefits of the school’s curriculum, students must be devoted to whatever activity they participate in. Throughout his years at St. Mark’s, Geheb has shifted his mindset on extracurriculars and the devotion he puts into them.
“I definitely went through a phase where I tried all these clubs, and I thought that putting all of that on my resume was gonna help me,” Geheb said. “I had a realization eventually that, it’s better to be 100 percent in on something or just get out of it completely.”
Stegemoeller challenges the idea that a student should choose between being well-rounded or specialized. The real goal should not be appearance, but the ability to retain knowledge and depth of understanding.
“The huge crisis of education isn’t spiky versus well-rounded, it’s who actually understands things,” Stegemoeller said. “If you’re on the national physics team, that means you are adept at physics. If you got an A in physics, along with the 50,000 other kids your age, how are they supposed to know?”
The increasing pressure of college admissions can cause students to build a facade of success that doesn’t actually represent who they are.
“I’ll show these colleges I work hard, see things to the end and I can be a champion. That’s what they’re looking for. I think it’s unfortunate that that’s what (colleges are) looking for, because the person who could be spiking in those ways might not be knowledgeable in a normal study,” Stegemoeller said.
At the school, it’s easy to be involved and there are many opportunities to join various activities. The school is flexible to its students which helps them develop multiple passions.
“There’s no reason why you can’t have it all in the sense of picking areas to be spiky in,” Steg said. “St. Mark’s guys are well-rounded and you will have true, passionate, deep knowledge of key areas of human life that you can keep developing in college.”
Half-hearted involvement in clubs and activities sometimes stems from the competitive pressure of St. Mark’s. Some students succumb to this pressure, but others use this environment to cultivate their own success.
“The way that I’ve chosen to think about it is that St. Mark’s is building a standard of excellence,” Geheb said. “When you’re surrounded by so many excellent people who have so much going on and are so smart, then you become smarter and more excellent because of them.”
Geheb highlights senior Hudson Da Rosa as an excellent example of an authentic and well-rounded student.
“(Hudson) ended up getting into Amherst, which is almost impossible to get into. He didn’t expect to do that, but he did and that’s because he’s just a genuine person that had real things to him, and he had substance to his personality, and that came off in his resume, and helped him get into a better school,” Geheb said.
Geheb acknowledges that it takes time to discover which activities to devote time to.
“You have to try a bunch of stuff to figure out what you like, but then once you figure out what you like after you’ve tried all of these different things, you have to cut the things out that you aren’t going to do,” Geheb said. “When you’re working on that thing, you’re 100 percent working on it, and it’s something that you want to put the work into.”
