At New Trier High School, students can replace lunch periods with Advanced Placement courses. However, a committee of students and faculty members recently proposed eliminating that practice along with class rankings.

New Trier isn’t alone in its attempt to curb competition among overachieving students. Many other Illinois high schools have done away with the concept of class rank as well.

But as a recovering high school overachiever myself, I can affirm that overachievers at New Trier and everywhere are arrogant, talented and have big dreams about changing the world. Their attempts to succeed at everything mirror their ambition to pursue these dreams. It’s the way they are, and the way they will stay no matter what high schools try to do about it.

Case in point: even though number one wasn’t granted the title of valedictorian at my high school, my overachieving archenemies and I still studied our asses off with the intention of claiming the number one slot. We also competed with one another in situations where ranking didn’t matter at all. GPA-wise, a low A was worth just as much as a high A, yet we still thrived on challenging ourselves to attain the highest A in each of our classes.

In addition, we attempted to outdo each other by enrolling in absurd numbers of advanced classes and by joining as many extracurricular as possible. But take it from someone who took advanced chemistry, AP biology and AP calculus my senior year, in addition to running cross-country and acting as editor of the yearbook and president of National Honor Society – I loaded my schedule not only to outdo my peers but also because I enjoyed participating in all of these things. I couldn’t have chosen between calc and chem if my life had depended on it. And if my high school had tried to force me to take a lunch break instead of calc, I would have resented the interference with my desire and ability to learn. Furthermore, I needed to learn that friendship and memories are more important than grades through experience.

See, upon graduation, I noticed that I promptly forgot chemistry facts, yet still remembered the time my friends and I started a water fight instead of completing a titration lab. In other words, I began to realize that high school wasn’t really about the classes. Instead, it was about the leadership skills I gained when an alcohol and drug abuse scandal rocked NHS during my presidency. It was about helping female friends through eating disorders as we all came to terms with our developing hips and curves. It was about the determination and work ethic I gained as a member of an awesome cross-country team. It was about falling in love for the first time with the wrestler who sat behind me in AP calc, about watching home football games in his arms, about cruising around town and talking about the future in his ’74 Roadrunner. In short, high school was about experiences, friendship, love and growing up.

In light of this, I regret spending so much time studying. I wish I had devoted as much time to family and friends as I devoted to my GPA. This regret causes me to put people and passion ahead of grades now. Ironically, if my high school had placed limits on my competitive, overachieving tendencies, I wouldn’t have learned this lesson through experience, and I might still have overachieving disorder today.

Thus, I make the following plea to New Trier and other high schools with similar ideas. Allow students to load their schedules and compete for academic recognition. After all, overachievers thrive and learn best this way. Furthermore, merely telling students that friendship is more important than classes and eradicating the possibility of actually experiencing this lesson will cause overachievers to resent, not acquire, the lesson.

It is not possible to shove life lessons along with lunch down students’ throats.