Each fall, a new group of South seniors begins their adventure on the path of college acceptance, and each spring, they anxiously wait for college decisions. This can raise the question: “Does being a South student impact the outcome of college decisions?” ?
With so much speculation about what colleges are looking for, students sometimes start to question whether their schools’ name, Grosse Pointe South High School, gives them an advantage. According to Counselor Beth Walsh-Sahutske, South has always had a strong academic reputation. Offering a wide range of extracurriculars and accelerated classes helps students stand out in the eyes of admissions officers.
“Colleges like to look at what classes our students take, based on what we have available for them,” Walsh-Sahutske said. “So it’s not necessarily important to take the hardest classes, but it’s important that our students take on the opportunities they have.”
With this wide range of opportunities available and taken advantage of, Walsh-Sahutske notes that colleges recognize South graduates as “go-getters,” right off the bat.
“We have a lot of opportunities that other schools don’t have, and schools [colleges] recognize that,” Walsh-Sahutske said. “Colleges know we have this rich environment, that’s something that sets our students apart from others.”
Aside from looking good to admission counselors, Assistant Principal Katie Parent mentions that a handful of South alumni have reached out after graduation, saying that South helped make them feel more prepared and ready for college.
“They [alumni] told me that they’ve seen a lot of their peers struggling in some classes, but they felt like the work that they did at South was on par with what they need to know for their college classes,” Parent said. “I think that comes with our students naturally challenging themselves and being motivated during their time at our school.”
Aside from alumni, student Siobhan McGlone ’25 believes that the wide range of classes available at South translates to a wide range of interests she was exposed to.
“Being at South really helped me figure out what I like to do and what I think I want to do in the future,” McGlone said. “I was able to participate in a lot of different activities here, and I think that helped me form passions for things that I actually like.”
McGlone isn’t the only one who thinks South helped shape her interests. As said by Walsh-Sahutske, colleges take note of South’s diverse academic environment and, in some cases, adjust how they interpret students’ applications.
“They [colleges] know that South graduates are hard workers, so sometimes they will, to an extent, shift their admission standards because they know that the quality of the students,” Walsh-Sahutske said.
