High School Portfolio Analysis

For years, seniors at Preston High have been required to present a portfolio in order to graduate. While this tradition has been preached to the students from the start of freshman year, no one begins to take it seriously until a few weeks before they are due. During those last couple of weeks, everyone runs around trying to dig up any examples of good work, peer reviews, transcripts, letters of recommendations, along with many other odds and ends from their high school careers. The result of the major last minute preparation performed by almost the entire senior class is comes out to be a binder filled with unorganized papers with a sometimes shoddy presentation. After it is all said and done, the portfolios end up in the trash or under someone’s …show more content…
The last year of high school is definitely the most important out of all four. There is a lot of work and time taken up during this year from filling out college applications, taking college tours, writing essays for scholarships, filling out papers for financial aid, or just trying to figure out a concrete plan for the first year in college. One could argue that students would not have any time for the amount of volunteer work needed to graduate with all of the other work that is inevitably dropped on high school seniors; however, many students are already in clubs, activities, and youth groups that require community service. In fact, students would be even more motivated to participate in the community service clubs like National Honor Society or Key Club when they know that the hours will count toward something they really want (and need) to accomplish. Even more than that, community service provides time to spend with friends while bettering the area. It is practically impossible to spend a joyful time with friends when trying to gather so many things for a bulky …show more content…
Where this is a valid reason to keep it around, the information within the portfolios will tend to be entirely outdated or unnecessary for a job application or interview. By the time students are heading into their last year of high school, most are already employed with a small part time job, have attended a camp, or been apart of a certain activity requiring them to interview with a group of adults before being accepted. To say that the majority of seniors have not been placed into having an interview is a completely absurd