Valedictorian is typically a highly sought after position.  It fosters hard work and competitiveness, especially when senior year rolls around.  However, West’s senior class, graduates of 2018, are stray from the norm when it comes to senior class competition.  They are undoubtedly aggressive when it comes to academics, but it is a unique competition that is occurring this year.

Mrs. Poulin has seen many senior classes graduate, each ambitious, but none like the 2018 class.  “I don’t even want to call it competitive as much as that the cream of the crop is so massive.”  “It’s not one or two kids about to slit each other’s throat to get to first place, it’s a hoard” said Poulin.  

This fact isn’t what makes the senior class competition so different.  It’s the reality that there are so many intelligent, gifted, hard-working students that are capable of becoming valedictorian, yet there’s not much of a fight.  “I don’t even think that there’s so much a fight for who is going to be first or second, it’s like “well if you can do it, I can do it,” Poulin said.  “That’s the thing.”  

Poulin believes that the 2018 class is not normal, “Do I think [the graduating class] is competitive? Yes, but [they are] just nice about it.”  

Mrs. Poulin hit the nail on the head with this statement, as many seniors are competitive but their ambition is only to better themselves.  There are no “I want to rank higher than her/him” statements floating around.  West seniors Russ Gore, Madeline Jackson, Rylee Jones, and Logan Locklear agreed that peer influences have pushed them to take more AP classes and that the competition has been entirely healthy.