If Luisa Madrigal was right when she sang that pressure breaks the camel’s back, every student at Ridge High School would be in a wheelchair. 

A place where an “A” indicates average and a “B” stands for “better run quick or you’ll end up at RVCC”, Ridge High is full of smiling, exuberant teens excited to begin their strict regiment of sleep deprivation and zealous perfectionism. A quick walk through the hallways will reveal students who juggle six extracurriculars, four sports, and volunteer 19 hours a week, all while maintaining a glistening 5.87 GPA and taking 10 AP classes. As frequent customers of Ridge’s billion-dollar caffeine business, they wave their energy drinks as flags of solidarity within the crowd of bleary-eyed teens. 

New here? Well, I welcome you to a brief outline of what your life will look like as you enter the grueling, highly competitive college preparatory boot camp (it’s known as an education to some).

Part One – The Classes

It’s short and simple – take eight APs your junior year or you’re bound for failure. Without straight A’s in all these classes, you won’t get into a good college, which means you won’t get a good job, which means you will never make any money, which means you will be unhappy forever.  

Part Two – The Colleges (the reason you’re all here — don’t lie) 

Got your eyes set on an Ivy League? Don’t worry, you’re not special – so do 700 other students at Ridge. But on the plus side, that number, and your competition, will probably go down as freshmen and sophomores burn out and realize that they’re going to have to drastically lower their expectations.

RDA recently interviewed George P. Adams, who through tears explained, “It was awful — —suddenly I started seeing 98s on Chem tests as good. I had to entirely rewrite my resume and find new colleges to reach for”. 

Let’s just say that there’s a reason Ridge no longer has a valedictorian — —after the battle of 09’ when students took to swords and sabers to fight out the gleaming position, it became clear that there were too many 5.2 GPAs and 1690 SAT scores to determine the true winner. 

But here’s a little cheat code, plain and simple. Founding 25 clubs, having straight As, and taking 18 APs isn’t going to cut it anymore. You’ve got to be special somehow and find a way to stand out in a crowd of unexceptional overachievers. If that means founding three small businesses and winning a Nobel Peace Prize by the age of 17 – so be it. There’s always more for you to do. 

Remember, social lives are for the weak. 

And don’t even think about asking about your sleep schedule —— you’ll learn soon enough that the amount of cumulative sleep gotten by the students at Ridge reaches a grand total of 10 hours. 

Perfectly normal. Right?

Part Three – The Unfortunate Realm of Addictions 

While some schools struggle to deal with students addicted to video games, a new epidemic of addiction has emerged at Ridge – an addiction to Genesis. While running high on Redbull, students frantically reload Genesis the moment they take a test, punching numbers into their TI-84s as they calculate the millions of ways in which their grades could collapse. 

RDA had the opportunity to interview another student last week. “I stay up all night,” explained one sophomore. “It’s just too much – I have to see my grades – otherwise, I might combust”. 

One junior shared his horror story, fighting through sobs as he bravely shared his experience with our reporters. “Last month, around 2 A.M, I woke up with the feeling that something was horribly wrong. I logged on to Genesis for the 97th time that day and there I saw it — —a fat, red, ugly, 95%. I knew my life was over”. 

But there may still be hope.  While the caffeine dependency continues to rise, experts recently observed three students making it a full two hours without drinking any, which is proof that addiction has not completely obliterated the Ridge population yet. 

Part Four — —Wellness Days. 

When you go to a school that ranks nationally in both academics and poor mental health, wellness days become of the utmost importance. While it is true that students at Ridge recently cracked the code to avoid burnout and remain excited to learn 24/7, occasionally, a break to cram for tests is needed. 

Thus comes Wellness Days, where you can choose between assemblies and “TEA time” or skipping school. While this newspaper does not endorse skipping school for no reason, it would like to clarify that being “sick” on a Wellness Day can be one of the few opportunities for you to get your parents to agree that you are indeed experiencing the worst case of the flu. Especially when you explain to your parents that you’ll spend every second of your free time at home studying, they’ll be sure to reconsider making you receive your school-regulated mental health education. 

The best part of these days is that no assignments are due, which means that you may actually stand a chance of getting over 2 hours of sleep the night before.

Part Five —— The Conclusion

Since assignments and tests simply do not and can not end here at Ridge, it becomes impossible to find an appropriate conclusion. Thus, on that positive note, we leave you in the never-ending abyss of work in a world defined solely by how many activities you can manage without collapsing.