Programming Office: Why?

With AP and elective selections finalized, it has become clear that the programming office has prioritized freshmen this year in assigning APs. Feeling cheated, many upperclassmen have begun congregating outside the programming office in protest, forming longer lines than those outside the library after the warning bell rings.

“I don’t even understand why the juniors are being so annoying!” freshman Sudat Khan exclaimed. “They’re pretty much going to die from senioritis anyway. They’re obviously not vying for these AP courses to quench their intellectual curiosity nor test the limits of human knowledge.”

Khan proceeded to flip through his AP Honors Advanced Multivariable Calc BCD textbook, which he plans to take next year alongside AP Physics Z and AP Physical Education.

Originally, programming used a nine-digit number generator—the OSIS closest to the generated number gets into the AP until all the spots are filled up. However, if the student’s OSIS contains the “unlucky number of the year,” that student is taken off the list. Moreover, if the student could not remember and recite his or her OSIS number on-the-spot in under five seconds, she would be removed.

Now, students will be assigned APs based on the number of AP prep books that they bought from the student store. Even if the student hasn’t taken the course yet, not buying that extra prep book might be the one thing stopping him or her from getting into that AP course he or she has wanted to take for three years.

Just to spice things up, programming has a different process for electives. First, programming office members filter out all of the grades of the students who applied. Each semester, they choose a different range. Last semester, only students with an 80.372-87.661 average in second term freshman biology could have applied for genetics with Dr. Nedwidek-Moore. Besides that, it’s a first-come, first-served basis, starting at precisely 12:23:41 a.m. on the night of JProm. If one student submitted his or her form a millisecond before another student, then he or she would get the class.

With these restrictions, upperclassmen have found that they have a higher chance of winning the lottery than getting into oversubscribed electives such as Forensics. “Winning the lottery was my safety if I didn’t get into Orgo,” junior Ved Patel mourned.

However, some juniors weren’t fortunate enough to even win the lottery. “What will I possibly do with a lunch period?” junior Daniel Ju grumbled. “My guy, I’m going to get so bored of being able to sleep for more than three hours.”

Now, starting fall semester of next year, there will be new APs and electives exclusively for juniors. Among a few of them are: “How to Get Into College,” “I Created This Elective to Look Good For College,” and “I Have Not Yet Succumbed to Senioritis.”

Some of these courses will be taught by former Principal Jie Zheng, who is coming back to Stuyvesant to help students apply for her for-profit military academy upstate. There, they’ll finally be able to take that one AP that Stuyvesant does not offer: AP Poaching.