As the fall begins to come to a close, large numbers of freshmen are securing their main extracurriculars for the year.  Of those that will go on to hold leadership roles as upperclassmen, most have already become involved in the activity they will lead.  While many actives provide walk-on options to all grades, others require students to hold a position in order to have substantial participation.  As a freshmen, almost all options are appointed positions–which, unfortunately, typically become filled with the siblings of those already involved.

I know from experience that the six or seven elected members of Student Government Cabinet who appoint the remaining nine positions are encouraged by the student body and faculty to be as open minded in the selection process as possible.  Because high schoolers have little to no experience working with eighth graders, Cabinet’s appointment mission implies that Cabinet aims to avoid subjectivity when selecting incoming Freshmen for various positions. “The Weekly’s” selection process is conducted with similar goals in mind.

Yet, a trend persists: siblings of high school students who were active in Student Government, Model UN, and Newspaper are favored in the selection process.  The reasons I believe this is the case are as follows:

First, younger siblings are more likely to apply.  For eighth graders, appointed positions afford the most options for involvement in prominent extracurriculars.  Anyone who has been through the Upper School knows that early involvement is often a crucial step towards leadership positions in later years.  An eighth grader who is reminded of this by an older sibling will know to take advantage of it.  Additionally, an eighth grader who feels less intimidated by high school will be less uneasy about deciding to submit an application to a group of upperclassmen.

Second, older siblings that have been selectors in application processes before are invaluable resources.  Having read numerous eighth grade applications, they can provide suggestions to greatly advance an application tailored towards the activity in which they are involved.

Third, younger siblings are granted the invaluable benefit of name recognition. As an appointer, it can be tempting to give an important position to someone based on the knowledge that their older sibling was hardworking or reliable.  A positive family reputation is a beneficial extra data point, particularly for an unknown freshmen’s application.

All in all, the factors of the problem each stem from the fact that in Student Government and “The Weekly” selections are entirely application-based.  The fix here is to establish a new element to the process by which freshmen have the opportunity to sell themselves past a few paragraphs of writing.  An interview element to an application, for example, would add another dimension to an unknown freshman’s application.  

To break this trend, we need to change the system; trying the same thing year after year clearly makes no impact.