Every year, a new group of about 1000 students files into the O’Plaine campus of Warren Township High School, while one group leaves O’Plaine and transitions into Almond, and another prepares to bid goodbye to Warren, awaiting the next chapter in their life.

And every year in November, students face a mountain of anxiety over the course selection process for their next school year. Sophomores are stressed that they will make a bad decision by taking the wrong class for them and mess up their GPA horribly in their junior year. The juniors are too overwhelmed with standardized tests, extracurriculars, college visits, summer internship applications and challenging classes to give sufficient thought to their courses for senior year, and the freshmen are either surprised that they already have to choose classes for their second year of high school when it seems as if school had just begun, or eager to finish up their high school and get to college.  Whichever grade a student might be in, November can bring lots of stress with finals fast approaching in addition to the intense process of mapping a plan to receive the best deals on Black Friday, and obviously, the course selection process.

A closer look at the Curriculum Guide of Warren can better explain the anxiety that most high-achieving and/or college-minded students face.

Warren sets its graduation requirements at –

English (8 semesters)

Math (6 semesters)*

Science (4 semesters)

Social Science (6 semesters)**

Life Fitness (8 semesters)^

Practical and Fine Arts (2 semesters)

Electives (11 semesters)

*: “1 year must include Algebra 1 and 1 year must include a course that has geometry content”

**: “2 semesters of freshmen social science, 2 semesters of United States History, 1 semester of government, and 1 semester of Economics”

^: “must include 1 semester of health”

The Course Selection process for the school year of 2019-2020 started at November 1st, Thursday, for sophomores; at November 13th, Tuesday, for juniors, and will be starting on November 28th, Wednesday, for freshmen.