Competitiveness Promotes Growth
Competition is often mistaken for only leading to negative outcomes, only leading to people comparing themselves to others and obsessions of how they can be better. In reality. On the contrary, competition can be healthy which is caused by people internally motivating themselves to be better in a positive manner.
People love the satisfaction of winning or doing well. Competition motivates people to be their best selves and feel so they can feel a high level of satisfaction. CompetitionThis also allows people to create goals in their heads of how well they would like to do, motivating them to prepare better and then do well. Anya Agrawal ‘25 explains that “competition motivates you to continue to do more, and it keeps you sort of in line with your expectations of yourself and ideals for what you need to accomplish.”
This healthy competition is apparent can also be seen when students compete with themselves to be the best that they can be. In terms of academics, if a student scored 85% on their previous exam, then they would set that as a baseline goal for what their score should be on their next test. Rather than merely creating a goal of getting an A or that perfect score, students can motivate themselves through their previous scores. Davandre Campbell ‘25 connects a significant amount of his competition through the sports he plays. He explains that internalized motivation derives from “trying to be better than how you were, for example, the day before, is something people can use to move forward. It’s like a strong way to push yourself forward, and I definitely use it in my sports life.”
In addition, students can positively compete with their friends to encourage each other to do their best. People are often influenced by those around them, so when the culture within a group of friends is to study hard for each test and quiz, their friends will likely be influenced, and study as well. It’s important when addressing competitions with friends to share each other’s motivation healthily. This includes being happy for a friend if they did better than you, and then just motivating yourself to improve for the next time. Agrawal says discussing grades and scores with friends “can be a lighthearted conversation, and you can bring a lot of humor out of it. But, there are moments that can lead to self-doubt or where it drives your self-confidence down. Then you start to think that it defines who you are, and that’s when it gets unhealthy.”
There is clearly a fine line between unhealthy and healthy competition, but if used as a motivator rather than a way to lose self-confidence, it will lead to increased satisfaction and better scores and results in general. Lauren Lee ‘25 says that competition “has something that you can strive towards, and if everyone is working to be better and pushing themselves in comparison to other high achieving peers, then it results with everyone being better. So it can help everyone be better.”
"When you’re competing with either yourself or others, you find ways to attain your goal, which drives your motivation.” Agrawal
"If you are relaxed about it, and not insanely obsessive with it, I think it can bring absolute joy to your life, for sure.” Campbell
Words of Wisdom From Director of Counseling Erin Adams
By Ben Passi
"Students you have grown up being assessed and measured for years."
"You can still want to do well, but trying to make doing school feel joyful and balanced is a good thing."
"I think it’s hard for students to hear the message: don’t worry about grades just worry about learning."
"At a certain point, it becomes a part of your sense of yourself."
"There’s also pressure on people to find their thing."
"Fear takes us out of the moment."
Perfection Is:
By Ben Passi
Madeleine Hou '26
Madeleine Hou '26
"Desire"
Campbell Arthur '27
Campbell Arthur '27
"Nonexistent"
Jen Vance
Jen Vance
"Unattainable Accuracy"
Jessica Atteberry '27
Jessica Atteberry '27
"Happy"
Perfectionism Fuels Dissatisfaction
By Evan Darmawan
Distinct from race, friendly competition remains a significant aspect of the Upper School environment. It may contribute to the student’s growth and align with the school’s core values, but it is essential to assess whether it has become excessive to the point where students’ lives become negatively affected. Friendly competition motivates those who participate to put greater effort into their academics and lives, venture beyond their comfort zones, and embody the values of our community so that it helps us grow as students. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) offers this definition: “friendly competition is characterized by rules, often informal, agreed among [and] mutually accepted [by its] participants, and that [it] gives the competitors [and winners] a special, advantageous status [among] others.”Given the abundance of opportunities for personal development and the strong encouragement to seize them, excessive competition is an inevitable consequence when certain students demonstrate a significant level of accomplishment compared to others. This hierarchical structure of students having achieved more than others can have both positive and negative effects on our lives within the school community.
A commonly shared student opinion of competition can be observed. When a few sophomores here were asked if the Upper School has a friendly competitive environment, or if friendly competition at the upper school has been taken too far, the interviewees felt that “no, not really, it's just hard. The workload is just a lot more compared to other schools” said Rowan Kalar ‘27. And how “[it's] not ultra [hard] but I think that Blake is definitely more competitive compared to other schools and we’re all supposed to be smart and the bar is set really high” observed Elizabeth MacNeill ‘27. Ms Warren stated that as a teacher of a religions and ethics class, she doesn’t notice competition, however, “[she does] notice some form of benchmarking like when I hand back an assignment, [they’ll] sort of compare who got the best score.” MacNeill also iterated how she “[doesn’t] think it’s purposely made to be that way but people sort of turn it into that because they are trying to be the best for things like college apps. Since this is a college prep school, all of your high school and a bit of 8th grade, it's all about doing things that would look good on college applications.” However, Kalar said how she thinks that “it is supposed to be difficult, it is set that way but they don’t really try to enforce competitiveness in the background.” This suggests that competition at the Upper School may be a mutual, perhaps unintentional creation by students, rather than something imposed by the school, as participation is optional. It's up to them how much they want to do as long as they can, as MacNeill also said: “do the most extracurriculars and balance their school life with it” while also still receiving high grades.
When asked about the positive and negative effects of competitiveness, both students indicated that there are definitely great sides to competition while there are also negative sides. Kalar mentioned how “there are good sides” and how “it pushes you to do better.” while MacNeill referred to it as more of a “double-edged sword.”
Overall it seems that at the Upper School, competitiveness is very regulated. Students can choose how they would want to go about their academic lives participating partially, fully, or not at all, each choice coming with its own positive and negative influence. Whether it's realized or not to potentially be toxic, it hasn't been something that is problematic within the community and thus doesn’t need administrative intervention. Ms Warren, as a leader in what the administration does, when asked about the admin’s role in competition, said that “we do not have an agenda trying to push academic competition among students. I think that I know we’ve shifted in terms of our phrasing but the value of love of learning or curiosity is really more about the individual student, valuing and pursuing something they have an interest in…I know there are times when a teacher might develop a lesson with like a Kahoot or something like that where there may be healthy competition that may be a way to get students excited.” Though such competitiveness may be inevitable it is not something that the school tries to cultivate, instead an approach to build a love of learning something and internal competition.
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