Although the Grady College has hosted many overnight journalism camps at the University of Georgia, 2022 marked the first time the Georgia Center is involved.

“We handle the overnight portion of our program,” said Bryce Martin, youth program coordinator for the Georgia Center. “Really all that Grady has to do is just show up.” 

The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication gives the campers a range of classes they can take to learn more about a career they are interested in. Partnering with the Georgia Center allows them to focus on the educational part of the camp. During the COVID pandemic, the Georgia Center originally started online classes over the summer that students could attend, but now they are expanding the camp by hosting overnight campers. They schedule out-of-class activities for the campers and make day plans to keep everything organized. 

The day plan includes activities such as going to the pool, movie nights and an on campus scavenger hunt. However, with the summer Georgia heat and multiple activities, it didn’t go according to plan. 

“Kids were exhausted, we were actually to the point where kids would fall asleep in class,” Martin said, adding that since then, they changed the schedule around to help fix this problem. “We implemented this schedule change Friday last week.”

Many students believe that the Georgia Center has made rules and schedules that have taken away their freedom and free time. According to an informal survey given to campers, roughly half said they “will not be attending this camp next year” due what they perceive as unreasonable rules and schedules.

Students are instructed to wake up at 6:30 a.m. so they can leave at 7 a.m. to get breakfast. After breakfast the campers go to their classrooms from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. They have activities directly after class sessions that end before dinner around 6:30 p.m. After dinner at 7:30 p.m. more activities are planned until they go back to their dorms. On most nights, campers are instructed to stay in their rooms at 9:30 a.m., and not leave until the morning. 

Staff members have noticed the strenuous schedule and feel bad for the kids that are frustrated. “As a counselor you have off from 8:30 to 5:30, and when we pick the kids up, we go from 5:30 to sometimes 9:45, and when we get back to the dorms all of the counselors are so tired,” said one of the camp counselors working the 2022 Summer Academy, who asked to remain anonymous because of his job position. “Unlike us, these kids were going nonstop from 8:30 to whenever we got back to the dorms.” 

According to this staff member, the schedule is, “Borderline inhumane.”

The staff members manage the kids in a way where they feel like they have no freedom. Everywhere the campers walk they are supposed to have a counselor with them at all times, even to go to the restroom. “I don’t understand why we have to wrap bubble wrap around y’all,” the counselor said. 

Campers do not like the way they are being treated at the camp and have suggested changes to make it more enjoyable. According to survey results, campers wrote the camp could be improved by:

-“Let us go downtown more!

-More interactive activities!

-Give us a waiver so we can tour the campus ourselves in hope of a good experience so we know if we want to apply later on.” 

Undoubtedly, the Georgia Center provides stability and deals with the logistics for the journalism camp. But many campers think it’s impacting the overall camp experience in a negative way.

“I genuinely came here with a different idea of the camp,” said a 2022 overnight camper. “I didn’t think it would be so restricted. Especially because the camps back then were so different and not nearly as controlling.” 

Like many high school seniors last spring, Georgia native Jaydon Dennis applied to many colleges in the hopes of gaining admission. One decision he had that past senior didn’t have to worry about is whether to include his SAT score on the application. 

 “I liked the schools that requested test scores because I felt like my scores reflected my intellect more than my GPA did,” says Dennis. He chose to send his scores to certain schools but refrained from sending his scores to others due to the fees required to do so. 

There are many factors that go into whether or not one decides to submit their scores, or will make a point to apply to colleges that do not require test scores. 

Rising high school seniors from all over the country are just beginning their journey through the lengthy college admissions process. Between essays, recommendation letters and resumes, applying to college is not an easy task. Many students have already completed the first step of this journey by taking the SAT and ACT. 

As some schools move to become test-optional, colleges have been putting a larger emphasis on the different areas of a student’s application. As standardized testing is appearing to play a smaller role in the admissions process, many are left questioning the future and importance of the ACT and SAT. 

Wade LaFontaine is the Senior Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of Georgia. UGA has refrained from continuing to be test-optional after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as LaFontaine explains, these scores are still pertinent in the admissions process. 

“Standardized test scores are supplemental to our review, but do add some context to the student’s performance,” says LaFontaine, “It allows us to understand that the student is not only great in the classroom but a good test taker as well.” 

Although many universities continue to require test scores, others have become test-optional. Rumors about the motives behind test-optional schools are common. Many believe that they are using this as a tactic to increase applications to bring in more money to the institution.

Although every university has its own reasons for putting certain policies in place, it is important to remember that “test-optional” does not necessarily guarantee an increase in applications. 

“During Covid, we were test-optional. It was the first time in history since we’ve started requiring tests that even if someone had an SAT or ACT score, they weren’t required to submit it,” says LaFontaine, “Even being test-optional, there wasn’t as much of an increase as you think there would be without having a test be required.”

Not every college is prioritizing financial gains during the admissions process. The University of Georgia is an example of an institution that values quality over quantity. 

“We want the best applications, not the most,” says LaFontaine. “We don’t want to be seen as a state adding extra applications for application fees to increase revenue. Our goal is to provide education to as many students as possible, but to also make sure that they’re successful.” 

Some colleges argue that they are test-optional because they believe that it is more important to see what students accomplish during their high school career as opposed to a single test. 

Just because a school requires test scores doesn’t mean that they haven’t developed a similar mindset. “Our university will be in a good position to have amazingly high achieving students with or without test scores,” LaFontaine says.

The SATs and ACTs aren’t everything they once were when it comes to college applications. However, the likelihood of these tests disappearing for good is still a long shot and extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon.    

“While schools may become more test-optional, ACT and SAT would be likely to adjust,” says LaFontaine. “Any business that is a business of that magnitude that has a national reputation will likely find a way to continue to be part of the higher education landscape.”

Mary Panitz was a freshman at Rockledge High School when a bus driver in her community reported that there was a student pointing a rifle walking onto her school campus. After being barricaded in a classroom for two hours, seeing her classmates cry and witnessing SWAT officers pointing guns at students, an extremely distraught Panitz and her peers were told the school shooter warning was a false alarm. Although no one was hurt and the school officials never spoke of it afterwards, the toll of this false alarm is one of many examples of the emotional cost of the constant threat of gun violence in American schools.

According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, since 1970, there have been 1,924 school shooting incidents in the US, with 2021 having the greatest number at 249. Hundreds of thousands of children have been affected by gun violence at school, but millions have been impacted by constant media coverage of school shootings across the nation.

Even for those who are not involved in a shooting or false alarm, media coverage alone or close proximity can be a trigger for stress and anxiety. 15-year-old Abigail Finnerty, who lives 20 minutes away from Oxford High School, where four students were killed in Nov. 2021, has personal experience with the shockwaves that shootings cause in a community.

“[The shooter] used to go to my elementary school, so in another world there’s a good chance that it could have been my high school,” Finnerty said. “I didn’t go to school for three days… nobody could sleep for a week or so. It definitely freaked everyone out a lot.”

Finnerty, a rising sophomore at Clarkston High School in Clarkston, Michigan, recounts the copycat threats her school received in the days after the shootings, the panic and paranoia within her community, and her resulting inability to truly feel safe at school. After the closeness of this experience, she has become more aware of the lack of safety measures to prevent these events and the realness of the threat of gun violence, though she said her vigilance, due to the frequency of these incidents, has remained the same.

“I think I had most of the same opinion that there needs to be some kind of change, but I think for me and others it really brought it right into reality.” Finnerty said. “I am… usually trying to keep an eye out, and be aware of my surroundings, but… I guess I’ve sort have always done it.”

Similarly, Panitz, when speaking of the main cause of her anxiety about violent occurrences, said she “… [doesn’t] know if it was this specific incident that was apart of it or just the rise of shootings in general and knowing about other shootings near me.”

Finnerty and Panitz’s stories point to the effects of being closely affected by the threat of a shooting, as well as the consequences of the frequency of school shootings in the media. Even if children aren’t directly involved in school shootings, they are significantly affected by them, according to Kira Riehm, a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Anxiety and stress in teenagers has been linked to higher rates of several diseases, poor performance in school and further mental health problems.

Neither students have been getting involved in efforts to prevent gun violence, but both acknowledge the need to make change in order to save lives and ease pain across the nation.

“I think that change is needed because it’s happened too many times for this to be a random one off,” says Finnerty. “All of these incidents change so many people and it feels like people only really change or care when it happens somewhere close.”