Graduating from my 8th grade year, I had little desire to attend the “infamously horrible” Hillcrest High School, which always seemed to be negatively portrayed by any and every student that spoke about Hillcrest in my middle school. In fact, these influences led me to do “whatever it took” to not attend Hillcrest. Other natural emotional factors such as my friends attending different schools, or the massive transition to high school in general, further buried the idea of me attending Hillcrest into an extremely deep void. I knew that I wanted to feel as comfortable as possible going into high school, and when I found out that absolutely none of my friends were going to Hillcrest, I found Hillcrest as “uninviting” as it could be.

However, my plan of not attending Hillcrest quickly went south, as Bremen High School stated that I could not attend their school due to imaginary “district boundaries”, which happened to assign my home address to Hillcrest. Ultimately, I decided to give Hillcrest High School a chance, regardless of the numerous negative comments made about it. Regardless of the bad Google reviews and poor academic performance statistics. Regardless of the “violence” accusations that never seemed to escape its name.

At first, my impression of the school didn’t seem to change at all. On my first day of school, and even during my freshman orientation, I looked around to see if I could spot anyone I knew personally; to see if any of my friends went to the same school as me. As it turned out, I had almost no friends to socialize with, except one person that happened to be the same person that invited me to sit with him at his lunch table in 8th grade.

I felt lost; having nobody to socialize and connect with definitely took a toll on my overall experience, but built me to be better. Being a Hispanic minority at a minority school of predominantly African American students, this factor of me not having many friends and me not being able to connect with anyone personally provided me with many invaluable social principles. I discovered that even if you don’t have many friends, or maybe you aren’t the most popular person ever, the few friends that you might have are the ones that will last a lifetime, and will provide you with everlasting guidance.

After a few months, I sort of accepted being a student at Hillcrest, and found Hillcrest to not be as bad as I thought it would be after all. The school, along with the administration and staff members, presented themselves as very welcoming and amazing people, which definitely changed my perception of the school completely. I finally started to see the potential of Hillcrest; the possibilities and amazing aspects that Hillcrest had to offer.

As a current senior at Hillcrest, I can proudly say that I have no regrets in attending Hillcrest, as my four year story has been nothing but the best so far. I knew that I couldn’t have been the only student that felt this way about the school, so I began to ask my classmates how they felt about Hillcrest initially, especially after making the big transition from middle school into high school. 

Senior Daniela Perez says that initially, she had “not heard any good things about Hillcrest”, and even had teachers from her old middle school tell her parents that she should attend Tinley Park High School instead, due to their apparently “better” academics. She states that she would not “change attending Hillcrest for anything”, and “have met some of the most wonderful and supporting teachers and administrators here”.

Similarly, Senior Nathan Hillman claims that he “hated it” and “did not want to be here” (referring to Hillcrest), also stating that while he was quite literally enrolling into the school as a transfer student, a bystander shared devastating news of a shooting that occurred at the very school he was enrolling in, which offset his already negative impression a lot. In addition, he states that as a transfer student, the negative external influences about the school, along with his natural impressions of transferring into a new school and leaving everything behind, all made it very hard to become accustomed to Hillcrest and its community. However, things have changed dramatically, and he claims that staff members such as the librarians made him feel welcomed, along with many of his classmates and peers.

So, why is it that a lot of incoming students feel the same way about Hillcrest?

I believe that this is because of the negative impressions that people who don’t even attend the school give to Hillcrest. These impressions then leach onto the perceptions of the school from new students, ultimately making them feel “bad” about the school in addition to the already-existing push factors.

I feel that the current students of Hillcrest should speak up about this growing problem, and address the misconception of Hillcrest’s reputation as I am doing in this very article. This would not only make Hillcrest more welcoming to future students, but also boost morale of the local community and positively influence the perceptions made about the high school.

Furthermore, if I could tell one thing to new incoming students to Hillcrest High School, I would tell them to be very cautious of how you let people influence you and your rational thinking.

Give Hillcrest a chance, and you may discover the glorious and successful opportunities of academics that lie within the walls of an underdog.