As students have now made it halfway through the school year, the process of picking their classes for next year has arrived. Current juniors have started to make their choices, and some are feeling the stress of figuring out their schedule for next year. As Lane offers many AP classes and electives, students have plenty of different options to choose from, creating questions on which classes are right for them.

Junior Eden Harris said the course selection process created feelings of uncertainty and fear due to the fact that she might not get all the classes she wants. 

“I think the course selection process was stressful for me this year because I didn’t know if I was going to get all the classes I wanted and being a senior next year, it would be my last year to take those classes,” Harris said.  

After selecting classes on their own, students schedule a meeting with their counselor to finalize their selections. Due to the high demand for counselor sessions around this time of year, many counselors’ availability gets booked up quickly, leaving them unavailable for a few days. 

Iliana Niculescu and Evelyn Boemmel said they were unable to meet with their counselor due to the counselor’s unavailability. Boemmel said that she felt a lack of support from her own counselor because she wasn’t able to see her, but she was redirected to one of the assistant principals, Alison Hildebrandt, who was able to help her. 

With only 12 counselors at Lane, scheduling meetings can be challenging. However, counselor Meredith Bantz said that for the majority of the time, one meeting with students is ample time to go over questions and finalize their course registration. She also encourages follow-up meetings if needed. 

Additionally, Bantz said that beyond counselors, students can get information about the courses at Lane and about the course selection process from the Lane website and administrative emails, as well as through the informational presentations held in advisories and sometimes whole-grade meetings in the auditorium. 

Due to Lane’s big grade sizes, students are put into different groups for course selection based on their GPAs. Bantz explained that this GPA cutoff number placing students into groups was organized by Ms. Hildebrandt based upon students semester one GPAs. 

Overall, from the response from Lane students, the process of course selection went smoothly, and students were able to choose their classes with all their questions answered. Resulting in relief for students once the course selection process was completed. 

“I think the process went well and was efficient, I also like that you can easily change our classes if you change your mind,” said Niculescu.