The Great (Stuyvesant) War

The Stuyvesant Class of 2019 has made history. With the entire class having GPAs above 98 and being sports captains who have each cured cancer, the big-time Ivy League colleges such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have resorted to other means to select the most qualified candidates. They’ve decided to host a battle royale competition within Stuyvesant, where the last student standing will be guaranteed a spot at the Ivy of his/her choice.

“There is little distinction between a Stuyvesant student with a 99.9 average and a student with a 99.8,” a Harvard admissions officer said. “Therefore, students must distinguish themselves by being the most cunning and ruthless individuals in their class. We are looking for students who will change the world. We want the next Mark Zuckerberg, Stephen Hawking, and Joseph Stalin. When this nation inevitably falls to tyranny, we want our campus to be spared by our alumni.”

Unlike the fight-to-the-death contests in battle royale video games, this is a competition of sabotage. Students must do everything in their power to lower the averages of their peers below the 98 threshold of the Ivy Leagues. They may employ a number of tactics, such as stealing textbooks, stopping their peers from getting to class on time, and posting inaccurate study guides on Facebook. Some students have already formed hallway gangs during their free periods to physically abuse their particularly high-achieving peers and to make them tardy. Students are encouraged to make alliances and double-cross each other as necessary. The colleges monitor the progress of this competition through the teachers, who will be happy to accept bribes from students to lower their competitors’ grades. Teachers who have long held grudges against some of their students see this as an opportunity to fail them with impunity.

Students must also compete in the realm of extracurricular activities. To get an edge on the rest of their classmates, students must oust each other from leadership positions and claim them for themselves.

In response, the fascist Student Union has announced its plans of using its private army to forcefully eliminate the top 1 percent of the class, while the power-hungry president has mandated that he be named co-captain of every single team and club. Several members of the Greyducks, the Peglegs, and whatever the ping-pong team is called have engaged in fistfights over the title of team captain, while the Innovation Lab has become a major battlefield as science clubs battle to reserve it.

For those who may be worried that the Ivy League colleges favor academics over extracurriculars or vice versa, the admissions officers put these doubts to rest.

“We will be taking a holistic view of our potential candidates. The student with the highest average and the most leadership positions will be the winner,” a Yale admissions officer said.

“I feel right at home,” an anonymous junior said. “My friends and I love backstabbing each other on a daily basis, though none of my friends outside of Stuy seem to comprehend the sentiment.”

“I am thinking about setting my classmates’ houses on fire,” another anonymous junior remarked. “I can do all things through my tiger mother who strengthens me. I know no limits.”

While some parents have expressed doubts about the ethics of such a competition, there is no denying that this will prepare Stuyvesant students for the same level of competition in college and to climb the corporate ladder in the future.