“F” Stands For “Freshman”!

Two weeks ago, Stuyvesant students were in for a shock when they got their report cards for the first marking period. Swaths of students were found crying hysterically on the floor of the junior atrium, with a heap of crumpled report cards thrown in a corner. Naturally, we sent our serfs—I mean, newbie writers—to investigate. “We were thinking, ‘How bad could it really be?’ until our newest writer, Mead Eocre, opened one of the report cards and immediately fainted from a massive dose of Emotional Damage,” one Humor writer recalled. “We had to steal safety goggles from some poor AP Chem students to safely view the report cards.”

What they saw was terrifying. A string of grades covered the report cards, but instead of numbers and letters, the grades ranged from phrases like “Maidenless,” “Severe Case of Senioritis,” and “Classic Freshman,” to entire short stories such as “Your weak physics joke has been left on read by all 27 people in the group chat,” and “You sent BooGrams to your 12 friends, but received only two in return.”

“It’s time for grades to actually reflect students’ progress, both inside and outside of academics,” Principal Yu confidently stated when asked why he changed the system. “That’s why we, the amazing administration, have generated personalized grades for every student’s report card. We believe that the feedback these grades provide will truly help the students focus on what they need to improve, which is a lot.” When asked about the scene in the atrium, Yu was quick to downplay it, claiming that the students “are all just weak, introverted children who play too much Genshin Impact. That sample size is not representative of the Stuyvesant student body!”

A senior was stunned by the grade she received for AP English Literature. “Apparently, my essays are messier than the hellhole known as the sophomore bar,” she raged. “THE [REDACTED] SOPHOMORE BAR! If they were going to tell me that my writing was a hot mess, they could have just compared it to the cafeteria-sourced vegetarian chicken nuggets instead!”

Meanwhile, a junior was crying from laughter after seeing his physics grade. “LMAOOOOOO, MY HOMEWORK IS SUSSIER THAN THE HUDSON STAIRCASE! Totally not because I copied it off someone.” The junior gave us a wink before shooting his mouth off even more. “My physics teacher is probably trying to forget that he saw sussy stuff in the Hudson, but that’s a whole load of copium he’s drinking. He’ll NEVER forget, mwahaha. YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS SUS? UR MOM!”

Worst of all were the PE grades. Seeming to know everything about students’ lives, the PE teachers did everything in their power to embarrass the children, assigning grades like “POV: It’s been two months since you’ve washed your Physical Education uniform” (given automatically to all freshmen) and “Stop trying to bump up your push-up test score! We all know you got negative one because you collapsed dead on the floor before we even started.” The horribly embarrassing grades were even enough to spark a riot inside the locker rooms, but the revolt ended after the PE teachers locked the doors at the late bell, trapping the students inside.

Eventually, the students decided they’d had enough of the degrading commentary. Last week, a mob of angry freshmen marched straight to Principal Yu’s office. Or, at least, they thought it was his office. We’re still not quite sure how freshmen managed to mistake the words “Oh, the place2 w3’ll go” for “Principal Yu’s Office.” The mob ended up wandering to the sophomore bar, the 11th-floor pool, and even the ninth-floor AP Chemistry classrooms before finally realizing where the principal’s office was.

When they finally did reach Principal Yu’s office, they demanded reform, chanting naïve phrases like, “We demand equal rights! Stop bullying the freshmen with these nonsense grades!” and “My parents will kill me if they see that my report card says ‘The jokes you crack in class are so cringe that I didn’t even want to write anything here!’” But Mr. Yu seemed unfazed by the sounds of squeaking mice outside, calmly typing away on his computer while the students banged on the door. Without even looking up, he pulled a rope hanging next to his desk, triggering the bells to sound and scattering the mob with frightening speed as they all scurried off to their 10th-floor Mandarin class in classic freshman style.

Given the nonexistent success of the angry mob, it was certainly a surprise when it was announced yesterday that the grading system for marking period one would never be used again. In an e-mail sent out by Principal Yu, he wrote, “Regrettably, the new grading system that we had worked so hard on must be repealed. It seems that the system caused more emotional damage than expected, which is frankly kind of sad. I expected the student body to have more resistance to such damage, given that they suffer constant emotional damage from their abysmal test grades.” The entire student body breathed a sigh of relief; the embarrassment had come to an end.

Unfortunately, the relief may be short-lived. Rumors have already started circulating about the grading system that the administration plans to implement next marking period, which includes, but is not limited to, trigonometric functions, two-column statement-reason proofs, and acid-base titration problems.