Each year, Roosevelt seniors are tasked with deciding what they want to do after high school. As college decisions roll out this spring, the Class of 2022 is making plans for their futures.
The Race to Higher Education
Yale University will be welcoming Claire Archer as a freshman in the fall of 2022 on the university’s track and field team.
Throughout her high school career, Archer has pursued nearly all sides of Roosevelt athletics; this began freshman year with her competing in soccer and then swimming the following year. However, it wasn’t until junior year that she began running competitively for Roosevelt’s cross country team.
Archer says she didn’t start seriously thinking about pursuing sports in college until the summer after her sophomore year, and from there, she began sending in “athletic recruiting questionnaire[s] that you can submit all your stats and … your unofficial transcript and GPA and stuff like that” to various colleges. Overall, she says she ended up doing “about 20 or so” questionnaires to get “an idea of what was even possible” in seriously pursuing.
This led to emails and Zoom calls back and forth with running coaches across the country. Over the course of the pandemic, she would attend dozens of virtual open house meetings to assess her options in hopes of finding a good fit.
After a year and a half, Archer narrowed down her options and applied to Yale through the Early Action program, and later received her acceptance letter this last December.
“I’m really excited … that it’s a pretty international school [and to] … have new experiences to become more independent,” she says. In regard to her sports career, she says she looks forward to being “part of a community and add[ing] some variety to my day.”
Archer reflects on life after high school, “What is successful?” she questions. “ I think that there’s so many different paths that you can follow to get to a place where you’re happy and confident and just stable with who you are.”
And though she says “No choice is going to have it all,” Archer encourages others to not limit their possibilities and to see graduation as a fresh start.
“It’s a new period of your life,” she says. “Whatever happens, it’s an exciting point where it’s just you never know what will happen and how it will turn out.”
Navigating the Professional World
Senior Oliver Mickelson will be taking a gap year after graduation to enter the workforce and start gaining professional experience in South Dakota.
Mickelson will be working at a 3M manufacturing plant which produces working materials all the way from safety glasses to scissors. “Really everything you see on a package, if it has a ‘3’ and an ‘M,’ that was made by them,” he notes. He says the job doesn’t have any prerequisites nor does it require prior experience.
Mickelson has family in South Dakota which was another aspect of attraction to the area, “I used to live there. I’d like to go back there and experience it again.” He also wants to travel across South Dakota and the Midwest to enjoy his freedom from “the academic life” and see new places.
He came to the decision to take a gap year because he felt “tired with school [and] all the stress and everything.” He adds, “It doesn’t sound like it gets easier in college. [I’m … ] just wanting at least a year of break before I get back into it.”
Earlier this year, Mickelson applied to the City College of New York and is still waiting on the decision. If he gets in, he still plans to take at least one year off of school, then continue on to college. “If I am accepted,” he says, “I’d go for musical studies. And then if that fails, I’d go to a technical school and become an electrician.”
Although he wants to work for money, as it would “give me a good amount of funding for like traveling,” Mickelson also sees working as a way to build his resume. He says he enjoys “working in that field [electrician]” and the “more hands-on stuff really.”
Mickelson says it was a bit challenging to tell his mom, “I’m not going to college right away,” but her reaction ended up being reassuring. “She … didn’t go to college and then did later on, so she wasn’t too worried,” he says. “[She] just wants to make sure that I end up in college at some point, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
Gap Year Goals
Senior Ryan Jansen will be breaking the ice with the Northshore Vipers in Boston, Massachusetts. A current AAA player (the highest level of youth hockey), Jansen will be taking a gap year to commit to higher levels of competition.
During the summer of 2021, Jansen was first scouted by the Vipers while participating in a summer hockey camp in Boston. After seeing her recruiting video and application, the coaches of the team called her back in September to play for them.
So, when she got the offer, she mentions thinking, “Why not have my hockey career go another year?” At the time, she says she “didn’t really know what I wanted to do next year,” so she it seemed like the natural next step.
Since Jansen already made her decision to continue hockey, she says she didn’t do a single college application. She advises other athletes to “Do … [the recruitment process] early so that you don’t stress out about it. Do your recording stuff early!”
After taking a gap year, Jansen also plans to continue playing hockey while resuming her studies, aspiring to play for the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2023.
Overall, she is excited for new opportunities, saying, “[It’s a] higher level of hockey than I’ve ever played.” She says she sees it as a way to build her “résumé” and to “experiment, … [gain experience], … and get better.” Jansen also mentions that “Over the next year,” she plans to “be doing actual recruiting stuff for college, in addition to hockey.”
Jansen also references the “expectations” to aspire to higher education and says, “I think everyone should take a gap year, … it’s great for a lot of people. … Go get an internship, do a job, … take some more classes like at a local [college]. Just do something because what if you … go to [a] college you don’t like?”
Journeying into the Unknown
After graduating, senior Valee Olson plans to stay in Italy through World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, an international volunteer program.
WWOOF invites and connects travelers to live and work at homestays across the world, along with share knowledge and ways of life. Olson says they will be doing “four to five hours of manual labor a day on a farm or small business … focused on organic farming and food production in exchange for living and board.”
With over 100 countries taking part in the program, WWOOF has a large selection of destinations for participants. Olson was initially attracted to the program for travel and sees it as an “awesome way for me to develop culturally and experience new things.” She adds, “What interested me … was … it’s sort of deviance from the general college plan in general because that was something that initially stressed me out so bad.”
Taking a less conventional pathway after high school had many benefits for Olson. The WWOOF program is less expensive than traditional college because food and shelter are paid in exchange for the labor completed for the host, along with tuition not being an issue.
Olson plans to participate in the program for four to six months after high school. And from there, they are “not making any huge commitments” in terms of plans. “I likely will take some classes at Seattle Central College [when I am back in Seattle]” she says. “[Or] maybe I’ll fall in love with it and want to continue traveling for a while, so I’m very, very open to that happening.”
Regardless, they encourage others to consider new possibilities after high school: “I would try and talk to people who’ve gone different routes. Try and find adults in your life who’ve done different things,” they say. “Allow yourself to pursue things that you want because you can always go to college later. College … is not an end-all-be-all if you don’t go right after high school. … You have so many options and there are so many things to see and wonderful places to go.”
With the expectations to attend university, Olson mentions feeling some aspects of “FOMO,” or fear of missing out, on the college experience, “[I feel like] I’m missing out on being a freshman [in college] right out of high school, … like going and living in a dorm my first year.”
But ultimately, she says, “I think that getting some living experience on my own and developing some really useful skills … will make my transition … a lot easier. … I have questioned my decision and stuff, but ultimately think that I made the right one.”
With all of this, Olson advises others to “Recognize that you don’t have to put that pressure on yourself, and there are other options that you can do to enrich and educate yourself in different ways.”
