It’s my junior year of high school. Officially, the college search begins now. And coincidentally, in the past month or so, a staggering number of my classmates have picked up activities they never showed the slightest interest in before.

Recently, one of my friends even told me she hated the varsity sport she was playing five days a week. Mystified, I asked her why she was doing it. What was the point if she wasn’t having fun?

“College,” she said resolutely. “I need to look involved.”

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Because as strange as the statement may have sounded, to a high school student who wants to get into a good college, it’s not far from the truth. Being well-rounded isn’t just a nice idea anymore – it’s a necessity.

But it hasn’t always been like this. Kids used to do things because we enjoyed them, not because we thought they would look good to a nameless admissions officer someday. My friend playing a sport she hated made me wonder – how did this happen? When did high school kids become shameless resumé-builders? What change in mindset has made us think this was the only way to succeed?

I thought back to last year – my sophomore year – when my entire grade took the preliminary SAT’s (PSAT’s). Kids who had previously considered themselves intelligent were devastated to score below average. Choruses of “but I thought I was smart!” echoed through the halls. “I only got a 150,” one of my classmates told me. “I’m stupid.” In the space of a three-hour test, our self-worth had been reduced to a number.

But even with college looming on the horizon, even with scatterplots telling us our test scores won’t get us into the schools of our dreams, I’ve realized that no score could ever define me or my classmates.

We’re kids, students, friends, siblings. We love concerts and snow days and dream of happy endings, or maybe just getting enough sleep at some point in our lives. We’re teenagers. People. Try summing that up with a number.

Fina Short, 16, is a junior at Eastside Preparatory School. She lives in Medina.