By: Hannah Sanderman
Surprisingly more than 80 percent of the 120 students surveyed have more friends in their own grade than different grades.
With all music, sports and classes that contain a combination of grades, junior Delaney Schaffner is still closest to the people in her grade. “We have been together all the way through elementary. The junior class are all people I have been familiar with as I progressed up into high school,” Schaffner said. “I have made friends with them as they have gone through the same classes, grades and experiences as I have.”
Senior Chris Keys also has more friends in his own grade. “We’ve grown up together and a lot of my friends live in my neighborhood,” Keys said. “It’s easy to spend time with them.”
Jessica McMurrin, a senior, has friends in same and different grades but is closest to those in the senior class. “Those are the people I relate to the most,” McMurrin said. “We all have the same classes, we have all been through 13 years of school together.”
McMurrin said if it weren’t for extracurriculars, it would be easier to be friends with people in different grades. “Sophomores have their own football, volleyball and basketball teams,” McMurrin said. “Varsity is usually juniors and seniors. In dance team we are all together, from freshmen to seniors, but things are still separated by grade like camp gifts, different friend groups within the team and how captains can only be seniors.”
Keys also makes a point the same classes, and electives are offered only to certain grades and people in the same grade usually are in the same classes. “When you’re in the same grade as someone, you tend to take similar classes,” Keys said. “You also have the same classes available, like the same electives, and some grades don’t have those electives available.”
Keys also noted that people in the same grade also get pulled aside as a group. “For some stuff, they pull you aside as a grade, like the senior, junior and sophomore meetings,” Keys said.
Schaffner, Keys and McMurrin all agreed if they were in a different grade from what they are now, they would mostly have friends in that grade.
When it comes to soccer, Keys said that even if he was a year or two younger, he would still be close to the same people. “I would hang out with the same people in soccer,” Keys said. “It wouldn’t really matter which grade I would be in.”
A big aspect about friendship is having common interests. For Keys it’s soccer, for Schaffner it’s classes and for McMurrin it’s dance and church.
Without these threads connecting these people with their friends, they wouldn’t have met their closest friends.
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