For students enrolled in three or more Advanced Placement classes at Grady, the new college success class is a lifesaver.

The need for a college success class was self-evident. Poke your head through the doorway of any AP class, and you will be met with tired eyes, messy buns, and pajama pants. This is all because these students only have six hours of sleep and a cup of coffee to keep them going through the day. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, however, recommends that high schoolers get eight to ten hours of sleep nightly.

Although staying up late, rifling through stacks of flashcards, and compiling Quizlets (every student’s gradesaver) for the next day’s test is a part of high school culture, I am glad the class, which essentially serves as a college prep and study hall, has reduced the need for the late night madness.

I am not a fan of staying up late trying to finish homework at ungodly hours of the night. The college success class allows students to go to sleep at a reasonable time while still allowing them to complete unfinished work once they get to school.

Some make the mistake of comparing college success to advisement. This is a classic misconception.

Wednesday advisement is the off-brand version of college success class. I rarely recall anyone who is truly productive in advisement, no matter how driven of a student they are. Unlike advisement, where students shoot the breeze by staring blankly at their cell phone screens, or skipping class, neither of these concepts are a part of college success culture, and the class certainly is not treated as an opportunity to catch up on sleep.

Students who are enrolled in the class work for the entirety of the period. The class gives students an opportunity to catch up on any unfinished work, while also integrating college prep, such as SAT questions into the curriculum. Not only that, but Jermaine Ross, who teaches the class, is happy to help students with homework, making the experience even more beneficial.

The class’s popularity was highly underestimated this year; about 211 students requested the class, but only about 50 students were able to get in. In addition, there are only two class periods of college success this year, leaving many students unable to enroll in it. This is problematic, as some students squeezed into the class by taking only three advanced placement classes, while others, who take as many as five, could not get in.

The college success class understands students. It understands that we have soccer games, club meetings to attend, and musicals to rehearse. It understands that high schoolers should not be spending seven hours doing work at school and then another three hours of work at home.

The class allows students to balance their workload so that they don’t have to do their math homework in chemistry class or get in trouble for having world history homework on their desk during Latin. It gives high schoolers time to hang out with our friends outside of school while maintaining that coveted 4.0 GPA