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Room For Seconds?

Sophie Mclean
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Room For Seconds?

     When the thought of Thanksgiving crosses the mind of many Americans, one of the dishes that is greatly remarked and noted is the all-important Thanksgiving turkey. The ever-going effects of this favorite Thanksgiving meal in its whole is rarely thought of but a very large contribution to the ever-growing issues of animal abuse and mass production issues.

     Every year, about 45 million turkeys are produced to fit the dire need for this holiday favorite, many of the birds coming from states such as North Carolina, Minnesota, and California. Most, if not all, of the places these birds are being produced are factory farms, buildings that confine a large quantity of animals into tight spaces to increase financial gain. The production of turkey in these factory farms is a vile and disgusting sight, the farms being one of the worst living conditions for an animal.

      According to an article from PETA regarding the turkey industry, turkeys are “hatched in large incubators and never see their mothers or feel the warmth of their nest.” These birds are also almost immediately thrown into harsh living conditions, being crammed into dark and tight spaces, beaten by workers, and drugged to be the desired weight and size for the “perfect holiday turkey”.

     While these revolting surroundings are instigated to grow the number of ready-to-eat turkeys, due to the living state, the turkey population is actually decreasing. Since there is a need for the birds to be of a larger, more enjoyable size, many turkeys become overweight, leaving them with unfortunate defects and weakened organs, which in turn results in a multitude of deaths. Some young birds also get overly stressed with the environment, many times leading to starvation, and ultimately, death.

     Another contributor to this drop in turkeys are bird flus, a more current one being the deadly infection known as the Eurasian H5N1 avian influenza, a disease that killed over 36 million chickens and turkeys between February and April of 2022. This infection was first discovered all the way back in 1878, and can be spread from bird to bird through saliva and feces quickly.  Although the virus itself is incredibly dangerous to the birds, factory farm owners have seemingly posed more of a threat, killing large numbers of flocks through variations of gas and extreme heat when they find even one bird contracted the virus.

     Fortunately, there have been some positives to the situation. Many places like Farm Sanctuary, Human Farming Association, and The Human League have made actions to prevent the slaughtering of turkeys and other farm animals in factory farms. Farm Sanctuary’s Adopt a turkey Project even allows you to “adopt” a turkey, providing the rescued animal with food and medical necessities at its new home.

     So, the real question is: what can you do to help? While you can just stay away from turkey in general this holiday season, you can also take the alternative route of researching and finding food brands that may use terms like “American Grassfed” or “100% Grassfed” to ensure the animal was not produced in an awful environment. It is also beneficial to buy from small farms that are family-owned or farmer’s markets, not only guaranteeing that your turkey was raised in a nicer environment, but also supporting small business. 

     With the recent findings of factory farms and their roles in holidays in general, it is clear that, whether we like it or not, they will most likely always be present. However, with enough awareness and care, it is possible that we can stop the use of these farms and provide a safer, less disturbing environment for all, not just the turkeys.

Best Ways to stop Vaping

MVHS Staff
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Best Ways to stop Vaping

 3,200. 3,200 is around the number of teens that smoke their first cigarette, vape, or hookah every day in the United states of America. This is horrifying considering that most of these teens use a vape, and studies have shown that most teens transition from vape to cigarettes. What is also surprising is that most lifetime smokers have attended to starting young: 5.6 million teens who started smoking as teens will die early as adults.

     How are kids/teens getting hooked on vapes? It all has to do with advertisement. Tobacco companies appeal to young highly impressionable teens by making vapes look like cool, sleek gadgets. They also discount prices to make it easier for teens without jobs to get one. 

     Now onto solutions that have worked in the past. One solution is rising cigarettes, vapes, and hookah prices. This will make them unaffordable to teens. Another idea that has worked is limiting tobacco marketing. Doing this will cause teens to not see it as cool or a good thing/safe thing to do.

     Two other options to stop the uptick in teen vape usage, are teaching the dangers of smoking and providing quitting programs. If we teach the youth about the dangers of smoking it is most likely that they will use a cigarette, vape, or hookah. There are so many dangers that it could be a class for high school. Quitting programs. Quitting programs are really effective, and the best part is that they are free. There are so many quitting programs in the state of California and THEY’RE FREE. This is most likely the best way to help teen smokers stop from smoking. 

     Let’s see what the teen’s parental guardian can do to help. The first thing you can do to help your child is talking to them, start early about telling them the danger of smoking. If your child is smoking, try to understand why they’re smoking in the first place. In the end it is more than just the cigs, vapes, and hookahs, it’s the nicotine addiction.

     Another helpful tip to help a child is to prepare them for peer pressure. Because in a real situation a random guy on the side of the street won’t make your kid try smoking, it will be one of their friends. Teaching the child to say no to smoking is one of the best things a parental guardian can do for their children. 

     These next tips are pretty short but important. Set a good example for the child. If you don’t want the child to smoke then the parental guardian has to stop. Next up is to establish a smoke-free zone. Don’t let anyone smoke in the house, or inside the car. If the teens have nowhere to smoke and realize they are in the wrong.

     Mission Viejo High School has a vaping problem no doubt, and it is happening in the bathroom. But some ways to solve this problem that doesn’t involve closing off the boys bathroom to everyone, is to have a supervisor just there. Even if they go in a check on the bathroom once in a while letting kids know that the supervisor’s pattern is unpredictable. 

Aaron Sorkin’s Play Adaptation “To Kill A Mockingbird” Gives The Novel New Life

Judd Karn
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Aaron Sorkin’s Play Adaptation “To Kill A Mockingbird” Gives The Novel New Life

     A couple months back I had the privilege to see The Book of Mormon live on Broadway, and just recently I was able to see To Kill A Mockingbird at Hollywood’s Pantages theater during a humanities field trip.

     The play, written by the legendary Aaron Sorkin—writer and Oscar-winner for The Social Network, Moneyball, and the play and movie adaptation of A Few Good Men—covers the trial of the falsely convicted slave Tom Robinson, and chooses to have main characters Scout, Jem, and Dill recall the events of the play as the narrators of it, providing further commentary and transitions in moments that needed it. 

     This narration allows for the fragmented structure style to exist, patching the jumps in time with explanations from the three. In the novel the court scene was one continuous portion of the novel, but the play, in the interest of the reader’s enjoyment, supplements it with scenes that took place prior to the court session. The fragmentation was virtually a necessity as without it the court scene would have run for an hour and a half.

      The court scene itself was incredibly engaging, with Atticus Finch, played by Emmy winning Richard Thomas, given additional dialogue and personality, while still faithful to the incredibly moral Atticus of the novel, with a die hard philosophy of being nice to everyone. There were some cases in which some of the actors made the scene a bit too melodramatic, namely Arianna Gayle Stuck’s Mayella Ewell, who quadrupled the energy of everyone else in the courtroom, which I found drawed me out of the play. But other than those few moments of over dramatic dialogue I was captivated.

      The one questionable aspect of the play for me though was Scout’s (Melanie Moore) choice of accent. It was a faithful 1930s Alabama accent but it brought about a fairly large dilemma for me: is it better to be faithful to the content even if it distracts from the play and the message itself? In my opinion I think it would have been much better if Moore made the accent significantly less apparent and would allow the audience to focus more on her acting itself.

      In some scenes Atticus is nearly-satirized by characters and in one scene Atticus breaks his strict moral code. Some students saw this as out of character for Atticus but I think it was necessary to the play and added some extra depth to the character. In the novel he is just a moral compass but here he has relationships with his family and takes vital actions. The fact that Atticus is not perfect adds to this depth.

      One portion that didn’t add any depth, though, was the scene where Jem stomped all of Mrs. Dubose’s flowers. In the novel it is taught as an extremely important lesson for Jem, who learns about Mrs. Dubose’s momentous challenge she is trying to overcome, and Jem begins to have a relationship with Dubose after promising to read to her every day as an apology. Jem is gifted a camellia, the flower he destroyed, which represents that he learned to regret his actions. In the play, however, he just stomps the flowers and—due to the less amount of content you are able to put into a play—is told he should not do it because it is bad and that you should see it from her shoes. The play does not have enough time to drive home this point and so it falls short.

     The camellia stomping scene felt unnecessary and could have been used to build up any of the main characters more, especially Boo Radley who definitely could have been used more to develop all of the main characters.

     Going into the play I was not sure what to expect of the production, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the props and transitions were on par, or in some cases, better than The Book of Mormon‘s production and same with (most of the) the acting. Entire interiors were built up in seconds and enthralling and emotional speeches were given in nearly every scene.

     I implore anyone that has the opportunity to see this play to do so, and if you would like a closer place to see it I am happy to tell you that, with the same cast, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa—from December 27th to the 8th of January—is going to be running the production.

Veterans Day: Not Just a Day off School

Aubrey Bertino
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Veterans Day: Not Just a Day off School

November 11th is Veterans Day, a holiday that many people take advantage of instead of honoring. To most Americans, Veterans Day is just a day off school or work, but the truth is that Veterans Day is a day meant to honor the brave men and women who have previously served in our United States Military. 

     Veterans Day originally started out as Armistice Day, a day in which memorial gestures were made to celebrate the end of World War I, which ended in the 11th hour, of the 11th day of the 11th month, November 11th, 1918, at 11:00 AM. The first celebration with the name of “Veterans Day” took place in Birmingham, Alabama in 1947.

     The celebration was organized by a World War II vet by the name of Raymond Weeks, who introduced it as a festival to honor all who have served in our military. After this celebration occurred, a bill was introduced that officially changed Armistice Day to Veteran’s Day, which was later approved by President Eisenhower. Raymond Weeks later received the Presidential Citizens Medal from President Reagan in November of 1982.

     These celebrations started by Weeks continue to this day, with cities all across America holding celebrations to honor those who have served. I myself had the pleasure of attending one of these events right here in Mission Viejo which featured many booths with free food and drinks for the Veterans and their families, as well as for those working the event.

     While I was there I witnessed the presentation of colors by our Marines, a three volley rifle salute, and a beautiful rendition of taps. I had the amazing opportunity to meet the commander of Camp Pendleton, Brigadier General Jason G. Woodworth, and I was honored to speak and learn from the veterans there. 

     While I was at the event, surrounded by all these men and women who devoted their lives to protecting our country, I had a very strong feeling of  gratitude. Gratitude for these people who gave everything to serve our country, who put their lives on the line so citizens would never have to. I felt thankful that I was so blessed to live under the blanket of security that their sacrifice provided and continues to provide. 

     I ask that even though the day has passed, all of you reading this take a moment out of your day to think of those giving those same sacrifices right now, and to be grateful. Feel that same gratitude that you live in a free country, and be thankful to those who provide it. No matter what day it is, remember to never take the sacrifices our armed forces make for granted.

Local Midterms: Why voting is important and who was elected

MVHS Staff
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Local Midterms: Why voting is important and who was elected

     Your voice matters! If you can vote, you should. You may think that your one vote won’t matter, but that could not be further from the truth. In the 2022 midterms, about two thirds of eligible voters came out. If you and everyone you know come forward and vote, even if you don’t think you will matter, it will. Every little voice matters, and our generation will shape the future of our nation! Before you vote, it is your responsibility as an American to educate yourself on what you’re voting for. Don’t just vote for someone because your parents did, or all your friends are.
     It is also your responsibility to read the bills being proposed, know what this could change, and decide if you think that will be beneficial or maybe even detrimental. It is especially important to vote for your local midterms because those are the ones that will affect you and your community most. As Americans, it is our responsibility to vote so we can and set up future generations of Americans.

Patricia “Trish” Kelley: She has been serving Mission Viejo for 20 years and was mayor in 2005, 2008, 2010, 2014, and 2021. Kelly believes the most essential concerns are quality of life, public safety, economic development, and transportation. With these in mind, she works hard to maintain and better our community.

Brian Goodell: He attended Linda Vista Elementary, La Paz Intermediate, and Mission Viejo High
School. He was one of the original Mission Viejo Nadadores and was the first person from Mission Viejo to win an Olympic gold medal. He was able to apply the work habits he learned through sports to his career in real estate. Goodell is the city’s representative to Orange County transportation authority H is a member of the city’s economic development team. He also served as commissioner of the community services commission from 2015-2016.

Robert “Bob” Ruesch: Mission Viejo Planning commissioner-Was Mission Viejo community services commission chairman. His goals include preserving the mission Viejo lifestyle, keeping our budget balanced, working with police on crime reduction and community safety, stopping traffic from increasing in high-density housing, supporting local businesses, and bringing back clean water to Lake Mission Viejo and bringing back fishing.

Wendy Bucknam: Wendy has been very involved in the community and volunteering to better Mission Viejo. She helped to increase the number of school resource officers, renovated recreation centers, provided purified water to the Mission Viejo Lake,assisted new businesses and the cancer institute at Mission Hospital, and provided housing for working families and seniors. Wendy truly cares about the community and has plans to make Mission Viejo even better.

Cynthia Vasquez: She knows the importance of wise spending and the responsibility that comes with our city’s budget. Her Goals are to keep our community safe, ensure taxes are used for our benefit, engage with the community and get their ideas, and ensure our views are respected and addressed. She believes we all must work together to make Mission Viejo a place where everyone can live a safe and prosperous life.

“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (In October, I Guess)

Jim Marsoobian
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“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” (In October, I Guess)

     It was the week of Halloween.

     I had to go to the store for some last-minute spooky supplies, to prepare for the best day of the whole year (October 31st, of course). I stared, shocked, as the crusty old automatic sliding doors of Ralph’s creeped open. I became overwhelmed by an explosion of red and green decorations and the sound of generic coffee-shop Christmas music playing menacingly in the distance, Santa decorations shoved into bouquets of flowers, and giant gift-box shaped displays holding cereal boxes printed with snowflakes.

     No more scarecrows, pumpkins, or ghosts could be found anywhere, as if Halloween was over before it had even started. In an instant, any trace of life before the Christmas season was erased.

     It was way too soon. Unexpected. Overwhelming. I mean, do you know that feeling when you listen to a song that you love over and over and over again, so much that you eventually stop loving it?

      Christmas is certainly no exception to that phenomenon. There can definitely be too much of a good thing, especially when that “good thing” is expected to last for three months, apparently.

     Sure, Christmas can be really fun for those who celebrate it. The food is great, the music can be pretty holly and jolly (that is, if it’s not playing non-stop 24/7) and all the joyous activities that come with the season are enjoyable. Even I, the family Scrooge, have fun with cookie decorating and driving around looking at the lights. But, come on, now?

     I’m just worried about what will happen if the decorations go up earlier each and every year. What about Halloween decorations? What about autumn decorations for the beginning of November? Has everyone forgotten about fall?

     And don’t get me started on the music. Especially when Christmas radio stations are constantly repeating only the same handful of songs. Listening to the same ten songs over and over, just in the name of getting into the Christmas spirit? It becomes boring, and frankly, I’d get sick of it.

     In fact, as of the moment I’m writing this Grinch of an article, my ears are being poisoned with the depressed reminiscence of George Michael singing in Wham!’s “Last Christmas.” I’m still in mourning over the end of my favorite holiday, and now my mother is blaring this anti-Halloween propaganda over the house speakers? Totally unacceptable. Unless it’s Michael Buble’s Christmas album.

     As I’m sure most of us know, the last few months of the year are jam-packed. It all starts with Halloween (the best holiday ever), and when it’s over it leaves what should be a nice few weeks to enjoy fall and Thanksgiving. Yet with Christmas decorations being put out on November 1st, everything seems rushed. As if there’s not a lot of time left to enjoy the season.

     I used to think the rule was to start Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, when everyone’s all excited after seeing Santa on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and people start buying gifts like maniacs because it’s Black Friday. It’s the perfect buffer between all the chaos of the last part of the year, and it’s still early enough for shopping and whatever else you need to do for December 25th.

     Regardless, I know that there is truly nothing stopping the all-powerful force that is the Christmas season. I mean, sure, it is pretty annoying how fast all of this is happening, but really, who am I to deny people of “Underneath the Tree” and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (the obviously superior movie in the Home Alone franchise)? It might not be my favorite holiday, but I understand how happy it makes people. Things seem a little brighter during the Christmas season.

     And I suppose it wouldn’t be too wrong to watch Love Actually in front of the fire while sipping on a peppermint mocha and photographing my cats after I’ve forced them to wear Santa hats for at least three pictures. I wouldn’t exactly say no to a few early Christmas cookies or hot apple cider with extra cinnamon, either.

     You know, maybe the Christmas season isn’t starting too early, after all.

 

Photo Poll: November Edition

MVHS Staff
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The College Admissions Process Is Abysmal

Judd Karn
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The College Admissions Process Is Abysmal

     This article is not meant to criticize the way colleges admit students; they play with the hands they are dealt. However, the process built around college admissions is abysmal, plagued with exploitation, disunification, and it cultivates a toxic environment for high school students.

 

     College Board is the major perpetrator of this exploitation. The company has a virtual monopoly on standardized testing and, in many high schools, is the only way that you can show to colleges that you are prepared for them. You have to pay $93 per exam in order to take a test that does not accurately represent the college curriculum you will be taking.

     AP Physics 1, for example, has to be taught in terms of the AP curriculum in order to get a good AP score. If you teach physics in terms of real-world application, then you are put at an extreme disadvantage when taking the AP test.

     AP courses have also brought pressure to take courses you don’t want to take. An engineering student should not be pressured into taking an AP Human Geography course if they are not interested in it. Nevertheless, College Board has built up a culture promoting the more classes the better, no matter whether it is of interest to you or not. They spread the idea that if you don’t take all the AP classes offered at your school, then you may lose out on your chance of attending your dream college, which can easily lead to a deterioration in student health.

     On top of advocating for people to take as many AP classes as possible, College Board also provides a standardized test that has become a keystone in the admissions process: the infamous SAT. After the pandemic, this test has been made test-optional for many universities and test-blind for a small few (notably the UC and Cal States). However, prior to this, it was mandatory to take an SAT (or ACT) to apply to virtually any competitive schools. 

     Keep in mind, this test was originally created by Carl Brigham, who made the test purposefully biased toward Caucasians and stated that, “The decline of American intelligence will be more rapid than the decline of the intelligence of European national groups, owing to the presence here of the Negro.” Brigham created the test for his eugenicist philosophy, planning to use the test to determine who is genetically superior and who should be selected for planned breeding and racial improvement.

     Now they use this same (slightly modified) SAT to determine whether you are ‘smart’ enough to get into a good college. And this idea that a person with a higher SAT score is smarter than someone with a lower one is ridiculous. The test is more about learning how to take the test and memorizing the types of questions that will be asked than actually knowing the content — many learned the material in the SAT in 7th or 8th grade. For the math section, it comes down to the memorization of formulas and the type of calculator you use, and the SAT uses the same type of questions every year.

     The tests, in no way, prepare students for the real-world and college. They are completely arbitrary and are favored toward the wealthy, who have the resources to pay for tutoring services, which has been turned into a multi-billion dollar business featuring thousand-dollar private tutors and a virtually endless amount of prep books, so their children know the strategies to get a good score on the SAT.

     And SAT scores play a big role in one of the worst parts of the college admissions process: college rankings. The flagship of these rankings sites is US News, which releases its list every year. This phenomenon has resulted in colleges like Northeastern — a commuter school that turned into a prestigious university by focusing on statistics important to US News — to play the ‘game’ of college rankings. 

     In an effort to climb these rankings, some colleges, like the Ivy League’s Columbia University, manipulate their data to gain a higher ranking. The system is easily exploited and is majorly flawed in that it tries to create a definitive list for the best colleges. There is no ‘best’ college; there are so many different preferences that vary from person to person, making it essentially impossible to make a blanket list.

     For the many students and parents that look to go to a ‘top 20’ school, it is increasingly difficult to do so. In the past ten years (Class of 2015 to Class of 2025) Princeton’s applicant pool has increased by over 10,000, but the amount of people accepted has decreased from 2,282 to 1,498 students. The amount of people able to become admitted into the ‘top 20’ schools has not changed, but the applicant pool has drastically.

     This drastic increase in the applicant pool has resulted in people needing to stand out even more than years prior. Gone are the days when you were able to be accepted to a prestigious school while being a president of a club at your school. You are now expected to be valedictorian, president of twenty-three clubs, a Division I athlete, have research experience, and run a million-dollar business on the side. And then maybe you will get in.

     And the application process itself has a completely different problem: the disunification of it. There are so many different application portals (the CommonApp, the UC App, the Coalition Application, CCCapply, SUNY portal, Cal State Apply, MIT’s own application portal, etc.) that make you submit the same information, making the process harder for students to apply to the schools they want to and making students spend extra time that could be spent making their applications better.

     Schools should have a unified, (possibly federally-created) application portal for this. Schools have so many different applications because they are looking to ask specific questions, and they feel the other portals ask too many, too little, or the wrong questions. 

     A unified application portal would allow students to input their information (grades, extracurriculars, test scores, etc.) into only one application and allow the colleges to ask as many questions as they want to.

     This is definitely easier said than done, though. Colleges are slow to change, with many only becoming test-optional because of a worldwide pandemic, and a unified application system would be extremely tough to implement because of this. Most schools use the CommonApp today, which allows students to apply to a large majority of colleges in the US, but it is not configurable enough for community colleges to use it, and the UC schools do not want to use the Common Applications given prompts.

     Even if schools can’t find common ground, one big step to mending the toxic environment of admissions would be to remove standardized tests from the application process. Standardized tests are arbitrary, promote hyper-competitive atmospheres, and benefit only the multi-billion dollar companies that administer them.

Conquering The College Admissions Process

Judd Karn
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Conquering The College Admissions Process

     The college application process should be pretty easy, just submit one application at one date and see if you get accepted or not, right? If only.

     The process consists of various separate applications. Want to apply to a community college, a California State school, University of California, and an out of state school (or a private school in California)? You will need four separate applications for that.

Community Colleges

     California has its own community college application portal called CCCApply, where you input all your student profile and interests at community college. This is one of the more simple applications (and the only free one) but makes the process more repetitive as, if you are applying to the four different types of colleges, you will have to input all the same information four times. 

     The application opens October 1st for Freshman and closes August 12th, which is the widest application timeframe of the four applications. 

      Many of these community colleges, like Saddleback and Irvine Valley, offer promise programs which pay for the first two years of college (everything: classes, books, registration fees, etc.), after which you can get your associate’s degree and then finish up your last two years of college wherever you would like (our local community colleges are partnered with the University of California to allow seamless transferring to all campuses besides UCSD, LA, and Berkeley). 

     This is a great option if a student does not want to pay for housing, wants to save money on their college expenses, or is still figuring out what profession they would like to major in.

California State Universities (CSUs) 

     The CSU application is (as the name entails) used by all state schools, from San Diego State to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (23 total), and is open from October 1st to November 30th.

     This application, like CCCApply, requires you to input your academic course load, but costs $70 for each college you apply to.

     These Cal States also offer a promise program although it is only available to low income students, while the community college promise program is open to everyone.

     CSUs offer far more options for affordable 4-year schools and an easier application process when compared to UCs.

The University of California (UC) Applications

     The University of California Application (Aug. 1st to Nov. 30th) allows students to apply for eight prestigious undergraduate schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UC Santa Barbara, UCI, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside, and UC Merced) through one portal, with a fee of $70 per school you apply to.

     The application requires you to do the same as the community college and CSU app, but in addition you have to add activities you did during high school, awards (you can submit up to 20 activities or awards), and answer four ‘personal insight questions.’ For these personal insight questions you are given eight prompts to choose from and you pick four from them, it is recommended that you write around 350 words (that is the max) for each question.

     After personal insight questions you do not have to answer any more written questions and are ready to submit your application. You do not need to take any standardized tests (other than AP tests if you want college credit) for this application, in fact UC schools do not look at any SAT or ACT test scores even if you try to send it to them, they will ignore them.

     This is a fantastic option for all California residents as you are able to go to some of the best universities in the United States for extremely inexpensive prices (comparative to other schools in their caliber).

Out of State or Private California Schools

     Most out of state schools and private California schools (over 1,000 colleges nationally) use something called the Common Application (or CommonApp for short), for this application you choose one of the seven prompts the Common App provides and write a max 650 word essay ‘answering’ it (it is usually not advised to directly answer them, they are more just questions to give you ideas for what to write).  

     In addition to the essay you also have to fill out an activities page (similar to the UC application’s activities section). 

     Out of state schools that do not use this application either use a different widely used application format (usually the Coalition application) or their own app (State Universities of New York have something similar to Cal States and MIT has their own application).
     These applications range from free to $90 (they are commonly around $70).

     These colleges sometimes also ask for supplemental essays, these commonly consist of questions along the lines of “Why do you want to go to [insert college here]?” or “Why are you interested in the major you chose?” or even just a question about what your favorite book or movie is. Colleges like to ask these questions to get to know you better and see if you are a right fit for their college.

    

     Whatever colleges you are looking at just remember to do your research and make sure that you would love to go there. Whatever happens though, whatever college you want to go to, it will work out.

Burning Up The Course

MVHS Staff
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Burning Up The Course

      One of Mission Viejo High School’s best, Sophomore Katelyn Tuck, has been on Cross Country Varsity since her freshman year. She has a Personal Best of 19:28 for her 3 mile run, which she got a few weeks ago at the Woodbridge invitational.

     Tuck plans on getting a sub-19 by the end of the season; she still has time to meet her goals. She has been running since 7th grade, when she did a track and field camp; unfortunately, only a month in, the camp ended short due to the pandemic. As a result, she had to run on her own, and, eventually, when high school started, she was able to start running with the team as a 14-year-old and was quickly placed on varsity. 

     Her biggest goal in cross country is to have fun and not stress about it too much. She is also in a full AP Honors class schedule, and with that comes countless challenges Her goal for her sophomore year is to keep up her 4.0 and try to get an A in Honors chemistry. Tuck would like to continue running in College, while studying something in the medical field or STEM, if she gets a scholarship. Her biggest inspiration in running is her Dad, who also ran cross country and track in high school. 

     In the past, Tuck has done basketball, flag football, gymnastics, dance, and volleyball but primarily played soccer. 

     When Tuck first started running, it was conditioning for the track. When she runs the 800 this year she will be adding both the one and two mile races, and she is thinking about competing in high jump. Her mom got her into running, but little did she know how much she would love it. She has a community and has made many friendships that she knows will last. She loves running with friends and says she loves it when she gets new Personal Bests. When she was asked about the coaches, she  said, “Coach Myra is my BAE. I love her. Coach Belo is pretty rad – best moonwalk around.” 

 

     She wants people who are thinking about doing cross country to know that it is not as bad as it seems, and that you will have a community of people and will ultimately make amazing relationships.

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