If you’re an upperclassman, you know just how stressful the registration process can be. 

Every February, students are shown a monstrous list of classes that they could choose to take the following school year, but only get to select six or seven. Depending on the person, they can choose a combination of Academic Core, College Prep, Honors and Advanced Placement classes.

Each grade is also required to take a few specific classes. For example, at H-F students are required to take an English course all four years.

When the time comes, counselors send out a Google form where students choose the classes they want to take. This form is supposed to help make the process easier for everyone involved. 

However, it often doesn’t. 

It can be stressful when you don’t know what electives to choose. For example, I had a hard time filtering through all of the options and deciding what would be best for me. After at least an hour of going through the form, I still wasn’t finished. 

Sitting at my kitchen table, I went through the pros and cons of each class. I put myself through stress trying to avoid making choices I would regret in the future.

For instance, I was choosing between AP Psychology and AP Biology. 

Ultimately, I chose AP Psych but I came to the point where I was seriously thinking about my future to make the decision. 

After filling out the form, students meet with their counselors to finalize their choices. Dr. Karen Olsen is one of the many school counselors at H-F. She explains how registration works and what her job is in the whole process. 

“We save the students from themselves,” she says. “We make corrections for them so that their schedule doesn’t come up in one big mish-mash.”

With a cohort of roughly 350 students, Olsen is in charge of making sure each one of them is headed in the right place and is taking classes they are interested in. But how do these numerous class selections fit together?

“Someone will put all of the class choices into a computer,” Olsen says. “the computer, at some given point, will take it away and tumble it all together.” 

Even with the help of technology, it can still be difficult to line up each schedule perfectly. Olsen says, “Occasionally this doesn’t work out. Sometimes, two classes are only offered once, but in the same period. Something’s got to go.”

The counselors then proceed to go back in and fix it. This often forces the student into selecting a different elective that does work with their schedule. 

Some students can’t help but be thrilled by the idea of planning for the future. “To think that I am already going to be a senior next year is crazy,” says junior Brooke Barber.

 Although for Barber, registration looked a little different this year. She says, “It was more of a struggle this time around, due to this being the final time I will choose my classes here at HF.” 

“At the end of the day, I just chose classes that would both prepare me for college but also allow me to enjoy my senior year,” she says.

While it does set you up for what lies ahead, registration can also be challenging to make such final decisions.

Sophomore Maggie Franc is confident in her course selections, but this didn’t come without struggles.

 “One issue was seeing if I would be in Honors guitar or CP,” she says, “that was a bump in the road because to be put in the Honors class, I had to audition.”  

Regardless, Franc has a good idea of what classes she should be taking as a rising junior. She says, “I know the basics, like U.S. History and Trigonometry.” Franc is definitely on track for the upcoming year. 

Ultimately, the guidance office at H-F will meet the needs and wants of each student.

 For more information about 2022 registration, go to hfhighschool.org or visit the guidance office.