Space Oddysey 2009-2012 a.k.a. THE HIGH SCHOOL DECISION, DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUN

The high school decision, though not as big as a decision as the college decision, is an important decision that requires much time to think about, as it can determine a great many things and alll the schools will have some sort of thing you really like usually. An example of such is that if you go to a musical high school, than you may be more likely to succeed in music and you may be really happy because you love music, but less likely to succeed in intellectual ways; while at an academic high school, you may excel in areas that allow you to be a scientist, an engineer, a businessman, and many other jobs.

I made this decision but two weeks ago, and it was the most difficult decision I have made so far. I had made it into three awesome high schools, Kehillah, the high school that was not so intellectual but hugely musical. Crystal is the immensely intellectual based and close to home one, and finally, Lick-Wilmerding is the intellectual and hands on one with the great writing system but is far from my home.

This was impossible for me to decide at first, as all the schools had one topic/program that I wanted, but I knew that if I just went through the schools in my mind, I wouldn't get anywhere in my decision. Then to solve this high school mystery, I started thinking about ways to help me with the decision, when I thought of the idea of writing down pros and cons. There was one problem though, I couldn't write a proper Venn diagram between these schools, because some things were worth more to me than others, and that was when my dad came in with the wonderful idea of making a matrix on Microsoft excel.

A matrix is a chart in which you put how much each topic is worth to you and give each high school a score, for example, if you put College Preparation as your number one choice, you label it #2 and then give each school a score, one for the best, two for the second, and three for third. Then, you multiply the topic weight by the school's ranking in the topic, and once you do this for multiple topics, each one weighted, the one with the least points loses.

After I made the matrix, it boiled down to come between Crystal and Kehillah, who tied, while Lick was left behind by six points. Then, I created a new matrix, just between Crystal and Kehillah, and they still tied. I had no idea what to do when my mom thought of how to make my decision, and she told that if I was stuck in between them when thinking about my schools, to think about where my friends were going and how far away the two schools were away from our house. Crystal had more of my friends going to the school, which was a plus for me, and in the end, I chose Crystal for those exact reasons mentioned but five seconds ago.

Then, I made it my job to see how other people made there decision in my grade and people in older grades who had already made this hugely important showdown between schools, and according to many of my friends in later grades, and in my current grade, that it also all boiled down to friends and how far away it was was also a factor in many of there choices as well. This made me think about how at the end of this mind-raking process, the decision isn't that hard after you have two dead even schools, as then you can just go to the one that has more of your friends going to it, and is easier to access from home.