Senior Gossip: A New College Resource

CCHS students Aliza Khan and Alekzander Vaux have created an interactive way for seniors to leave behind their college application advice to future generations of students. Khan and Vaux both serve as commissioners of publicity for the Sophomore Class Council and chair heads for the media committee. Now they are working towards bigger connections with seniors and sophomores during a time of distance learning. 

“It’s a series where we interview seniors about applying to colleges, so sophomores can get information on how it’s like to apply to college from an informal source, their peers,” Khan said.

Since sophomore year serves as a transitional year for junior and senior years, the sophomore class council wants to make as many resources available for students. This is why Khan and Vaux hopped on a Zoom call and started working out their “Senior Gossip” campaign. 

“We worked out the logistics of what questions we would ask, various ways we could interview students during the pandemic, how to inspire engagement, and how to propose this to the Senior Class for them to be motivated to do so in just a few hours,” Khan said.

Khan and Vaux are seeking the greatest possible participation from seniors for this project. They have created lists of questions for seniors to ask, varying from simpler ones such as “What colleges did you apply to?” to “What struggles did you face along your college application pathway and how did you overcome these challenges?” They distributed these questions through a Google Form and are planning for this form to gain more exposure to be more helpful for underclassmen. They are hoping to provide sophomores with the most helpful information possible based on the college application process.

One of their main goals is for seniors to make their responses “thorough and thoughtful since [their] responses will help guide future classes along a successful college application pathway.” They also are looking forward to giving sophomores advice early on in the college application process to further help them in high school. 

“They can implement the advice regarding what pathways they can explore at our high school which has been successful for previous students,” Khan said. 

“Senior Gossip will make the college application process easier on students by providing them Frequently Asked Questions they might be wondering in the future, NOW so that they don’t repeat the same mistakes past students have made by learning from them, and from multiple different seniors who have a wide range of interests,” Khan said. She believes it’s different from just asking a friend or sibling because they can only provide their perspective based on their interests and views, while Senior Gossip involves a wide range of students with diverse paths.

With the Senior Gossip campaign, students will be getting exposed to a variety of responses from seniors on how they should approach the college application process. This is a great step that students have taken to make the college application process less scary and stressful for them when they start applying to colleges.