With the standards being held higher and higher here at Elder, all students know that the new exam exemption grade is basically impossible to get, at least for me. Many students complain about raising the exemption grade five points. Moving from an 85 to a 90 may not seem like much but it does make a big difference.

An 85 average in a class was easy to get if you put in the effort, but to average a 90% in a class is very difficult unless you go home and study and do homework for hours each night. For example, if you play a sport or multiple sports, you do not have much time when you get home and the last thing students want to do after a long day or any day is to spend hours on homework until they fall asleep.

Jimmy Grote, a junior here at Elder agrees that it should go back down to an 85% average to be exempt.

“It is simply too hard on us, you cannot focus for a whole school day and then go home and continue for another few hours,” said Jimmy. “I got exempt from a decent amount of my classes when it was at an 85% but now I struggle and I am not exempt from anything so far.”

My first year here at Elder was great and my grades were okay, at least I thought they were. Coming back the next year as a sophomore learning that they raised the exemption grade there was buzz about it. I only got exempt from one class last year and it was a semester class. This year I know that there is no chance for me to get exempt but I’m not just going to give up, I am still going to try to get exempt but the odds are against me.

Dylan Herren, also a junior at Elder added, “The new exemption policy ruined me getting exempt. I literally can’t get exempt, I don’t have the time and even if I did I couldn’t focus for that long. I think that averaging a 90% is not reasonable.”

After hearing him say that I asked him what he thinks should be changed, “I think that they should realize that having a high school student study for hours and hours after school is ridiculous and they should lower the exemption grade back down to and 85%,” said Dylan.

The percentage of kids getting exempt has gone down drastically. In my opinion, exams are honestly just a grade to bring your average lower. It is almost impossible to study for them and even if you can study for it, there are so many things to go back over it is extremely overwhelming. Studies have proven that our generation is more stressed out than any other generation has been and most kids say the reason they are most stressed out are grades and school.

Louis Faillace is in his last year at Elder. “Freshman and sophomore year were cake because the exemption grade was only an 85% which required the average amount of work. Raising it to a 90% average really killed me because I play football and baseball and I don’t have much time after those sports,” said Louis. “If the teachers were allowed to assign their own required grade to be exempt I think that would be better.”

There is nothing that should make you overthink or stress out so badly. If you are being overwhelmed with studying, stop and take a break. You don’t have to continuously study and do work. A number should not determine what I can be. If you are giving your all, then that is all we can ask for.