According to every clothing and supply store ever the start of the school year means just one thing: back-to-school shopping.

Hours are spent trying on clothes in dressing rooms and closets planning the first day of school outfit. Backpacks are stuffed to their breaking point with binders and notebooks waiting to be filled with the year’s work. Pencil cases have been loaded with supplies by students looking to start out the year on a high note.

For some students, that means lamination, color-coordination and alphabetical filing.

Jennie Blumenfield ’15, for example, a self-proclaimed “extremely organized” person, takes pride in her structured style and the fact that people often comment on it.

“I organize all my school supplies so, one, it’s easier to manage and, two, when everything looks pretty, it gives me some incentive to work!” Blumenfield said. “My favorite part about organizing school supplies is making color coordinating labels for all of my notebooks and folders.”

Students like Blumenfield inspire awe, confusion, irritation and maybe even envy.

They’re instantly distinguishable: the seemingly-bottomless and better-stocked-than-Staples pencil case that would impress even Mary Poppins; the rainbow of coordinating binders and folders and dividers; the note-taking system that makes most of us look like bumbling baboons with an explosion of random papers come midterms and finals.

Claire Sampson ’15 also considers herself very neat and tidy, and agrees that keeping organized “definitely helps for studying when you get to a test” because “everything is all in one place.”

“Sometimes messy people comment on my organization and ask for help,” Marnie Adelkopf ’17, another well-organized student, said. She shares Blumenfield’s belief that organization makes a heavy school load more manageable.

“Plus,” Sampson added, “It just looks better.”

Such order comes at a price, however.

“Every year, my mom gets frustrated not only with the extensive Staples receipt, but also how much time I spend in the store picking everything out until it matches perfectly,” said Blumenfield.

Olivia Wiener ’15 said her parents feel much the same way and “always comment on how much I spend.” However, Wiener feels their lack of enthusiasm is unjustified, as neither her mom nor dad “actually understand what I do all day in school, so they don’t realize if it’s important or not.”

Wiener says this means she can usually get away with buying “whatever [she] wants,” which this year included a new Camelback water bottle.

“It’s a cute mini version of the two that I already have,” she said.

Others share Wiener’s pride and excitement over some of their favorite supplies. Halley Jonas ’16 fondly recals “the coolest supply [she’s] ever gotten”– Hello Kitty and Guardians of the Galaxy notebooks and folders.

Whatever grade they are in, whatever color scheme they choose, one thing about these students is clear: they have their lives together in a way some of us can only dream of.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get seated next to one to take advantage and bask in the glow of the new-pencil, fresh-shiny-plastic smell.