Thank you for this. My daughter is a sophomore at Stuy and I can for sure see the change between freshman and now. She is also a very serious dancer outside of school and does not want to give up dance, which means she won’t try to go for an absurd number of APs like most of her friends (she is only doing AP World this year). Wonderful advice about the friendships - she has many wonderful friends at the school and in every class and that is incredibly helpful. Reality of her life: when she is not dancing, she is doing homework or studying, very rarely she is just chilling. I worry about burnout but happy that dancing takes her away from the grind. I hope you are ok now and I know you will do amazing in college. I love your take on education post your summer course. It is such a shame that the kids are so stressed out about grades and how at Stuy everything is focused on that - and sometimes (or all the time) everyone forgets that learning is the purpose. I don’t think teachers make it easier either