Staples High School has a stellar reputation for getting their students into college. The Wreckers have been recognized by numerous different sites regarding their accomplishment of preparing their kids for higher education, including a recent achievement of being recognized as the #1 high school in the Niche Rankings for Connecticut High Schools. 

Many times, however, information about whether or not students excel and prosper at the school they attend after Staples isn’t provided. Many believe that Staples prepares students for the academic side of college, while others have criticism about whether the school fully prepares their students for the whole experience of higher education. 

Katie Simons ’22 attends University of Southern California, a college in which encompasses approximately 20,000 undergraduate students. She believes her high school experience not only aided her academically, but believes Staples also taught her many necessary management skills for college.

“I know how to plan out longer papers,” Simons said. “I can handle long readings and feel comfortable approaching professors for extra help.”

Likewise, Matthew Genser ’22, who attends Dartmouth College, added how Staples prepares their students for the challenging workload in college.

“Most people here [at Dartmouth] are shocked at how much more work college is than high school,” Genser said. ”But Staples holds students to a really high standard, and you can take the hardest classes in college and it will still feel somewhat manageable because of the rigor of classes at Staples.”

But, the culture of Staples can at times be flawed due to over-stress of school work and upcoming events, like college acceptance. 

 “The culture of Staples really encourages students to be busy all of the time,” Simons said. “We bragged about how little sleep we got the night before and tried to participate in as many clubs as possible.”

Scott Coleman ’22 attends Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland as a soccer player. Coleman believes that Staples could have done a better job of helping him use his free time efficiently.

 “Oftentimes, when we had free time in class, our teachers would assign somewhat pointless work for us to do rather than giving us the choice of what to do with our free time,” Coleman said. “I just think that a lot of time was wasted forcing ourselves to do work without anything being gained from it.”