THE ECHO

By Grace Otey // Reporter

Avon High School is home to hordes of exceptional students, but a few of them rise above the rest, in academics and extracurriculars.

Jade Price, sophomore and salutatorian of her class, is not your average student. When she had an AP Chemistry Test earlier this semester, she didn’t do the notes. She didn’t annotate the notes; she didn’t even read the notes. She rewrote them, word by word, line by line, until every bit of information was engraved into her mind. Jade studied two hours minimum every night for three days leading up to the test. She looked through past problem sets and redid them until she figured out the concepts to her satisfaction.

Being a high achieving student is by no means easy. From late nights studying for an AP Chem test or long Saturday rehearsals for the school musical. Those students work hard and it shows. But what makes them work so hard? What makes them exceptional?

Price is just that, she’s a symphony viola, a member of the Speech and Debate team, Avon TV, the Riley Dance Marathon Board, and she’s ranked second in her class.  According to her she’s driven only by her ambition to succeed.

“It’s really just me and just my pressure, my pressure on myself to just do my best,” Price said.

She’s not the only one at Avon High School pushing herself to succeed. Emery Clark, Student Body President, President of Accents, and female lead in the school musical is also motivated by her drive for success. She believes that success is different for every person, but for her it’s making an impact.

“Success is, I think, defined by each individual person. My version of success is not the same as everyone else’s, but I would say my version of success is just like me being fulfilled and happy in what I’m doing but also making an impact on others. My main goal in life is to make an impact,” Clark said.

Clark puts hours into her activities in order to reach her version of success. With long rehearsal hours and community service outside of that.

“I would say an average is like 10 to 12 hours a week [practicing for show choir] … And then I have an internship at the Mary Lee Meyer Community Pantry,” Clark said.

Clark is always doing something, but she’s not alone, Santiago Jiminez Butcher, Lincoln Douglass Captain and third in his class spends hours on end preparing for meets.

“When we’re talking about national circuit competitions, like the University of Kentucky season opener, also known as the National Speech and Debate season opener, I spent like 20 plus hours prepping for it.”

Jiminez Butcher said he was disappointed when all his efforts are in vain. Although he said it didn’t happen often.

“Yeah, so my first ever debate meet, I had five rounds, and in two of those rounds, I went against two of the best debaters in Indiana, Mahitha Konjeti and Jessica Dean, and I lost to both of them. I won all my three other rounds, but after losing to these, these two, I like, felt really, really bad, and it was really, really uncomfortable. And so when I lose, I feel really driven to work a lot harder so that I can succeed the next time,” Jimenez Butcher said.

Disappointments like this can be devastating to a high achieving student. The work they put in can teeter on obsessive, according to Price, and when it doesn’t come to fruition, they can become disheartened. Price comments on the self-deprecating mindset she suffers when faced with failure.

“I just get lost in another one of my hobbies.  I realize how self-deprecating it is, but I kind of just have to sit there and think about all the times where I didn’t do stuff, I wasn’t doing something that I could have been doing something that would have helped me, like, theoretically, reach my goal. And that’s like a horrible habit to have, where I’m looking at my breaks, where I was allowing myself to be human and being a child, and say that I was that if I only wasn’t doing something, like not doing something right then, that I would have been able to reach that goal,” Price said.

The effects of failure can be painful, but it’s a part of life. Which is why hobbies and actions students enjoy can help them avoid things like burnout.

“What I do to relieve burnout is scroll on Instagram reels. Okay, so I’m on like Instagram reels, like six hours a day,” Jiminez Butcher said.

These students put in the work, they spend hours on their activities, which is why they excel. But to succeed they must make some sacrifices, like being stressed and upset when things don’t work out. They do find ways around the pressure, even if most of it is internal, like spending six hours on Instagram Reels to avoid burnout. Price reminds herself that she doesn’t always have to be the best, what matters is if she tried her best. “I’m starting to learn that it’s practically impossible to constantly put in all of your effort so I would consider my idea of success to just have tried and to have gotten the best outcome possible and to have put in the necessary work to deserve what I got,” Price said.