By Jocelyn Ming, Quill Writer
River Hill has been well-known for its academic tenacity and rigor within and outside of its community for decades. One of the school’s greatest strengths has been its overwhelming interest in leadership opportunities. With the recent announcement of the 25-26 freshman year SGA applications, River Hill is eager to see its underclassmen continue the tradition of leadership for their next four years.
On November 19th, the freshman SGA held an informational meeting on executive board member applications. Approximately thirty 9th graders showed up, eager to learn more about how they could tailor their applications to perfection. As the meeting began, SGA sponsors Ms. Shagogue, Ms. Seymour and Ms. Finkelston detailed the application and interview process.
They stated that the results of this process would only affect the board for the remaining year of 2025-2026 and not the election following for the year of 2026-2027. They also made sure to highlight the purpose of these positions: to provide experience for the next election.
With that being said, the sponsors are trying to put as many qualified students as they can onto the executive board. This means many roles will be filled by more than one student. As for the applications themselves, there are six prompts to be filled out: the student’s top three choices for position and an expression and explanation of interest for each.
These applications were due by the first of December. Following that, sponsors will check in with two teachers of each applicant to ensure that they are well-qualified for their position. Next, the interview process began on December 8th and continued through the week.
The sponsors each gave their own piece of advice to the students. In terms of the characteristics of a great candidate, students should demonstrate that they are “self-driven, creative, motivated [and] high-energy people.” They also added in a description of “red-flags” that they would watch for, including students who “talk a big game and then don’t do anything.”
Among the students in attendance, freshman Leah Muzzatti looks forward to fundraising efforts and spirit week organization. While there is lots of excitement, there seems to be some tension as well. Upon my own questioning, one of the interested students, Divi Pingili, said “it’s good to have a bit of competitiveness but sometimes negative because the peer pressure might start to get at you at some points.” Divi believes that this trend is due to the fact that “a lot people came from Clarkesville [Middle School] so they already have that academic competitiveness”
In a survey conducted with 31 students and 1 teacher — 13 of which were freshmen and 19 were non-freshman, nearly 77% of the freshmen said that they believed that their class was more competitive than other classes in aspects of academic excellence, seeking extracurricular experiences and school spirit. On the other hand, the results of surveying non-freshmen yielded a bare majority which is still significant when you take into consideration the stereotypical animosity towards freshmen.
Since these surveys were taken in person, many upperclassmen were eager to share their views on the underclassmen as a whole, even going as far as to say the sophomore class was the most competitive in the school. On the other hand, some students voiced that the sophomore class was in fact the opposite and least STEM-oriented.
Many of the freshmen admitted that they were not familiar with the rigor of upperclassmen since they had only officially started high school a few months before. Some answers were ambiguously open-ended like one student who made the distinction between academic achievement and school spirit. They added that it was typical of incoming freshmen to be more excited about high school and therefore put more effort into school traditions. While it seems that the general opinion about this class isn’t too straightforward, we hope that their path forward is a smooth one.
Good luck, applicants!