I attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Bergen County, New Jersey. The cars in the parking lot consisted of BMWs, Mercedes and Audis. The hallways were filled with the aroma of Starbucks coffee in the morning and were filled with gossip at locker break. There was a Facebook page for my class where we’d upload study guides to tests, pictures of our prom dresses and our schedules when the summer was coming to an end. There were the popular girls, the athletic girls, the band girls, and every other type of girl group you could possibly think of. When I decided to attend the private school instead of the public school, people would ask me “why?” At first, I was not able to come up with an answer and was not able to until writing this article -- almost a month after graduation. Looking back on my four years of high school, attending an all-girls school was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Here is a list of my top three reasons why:
1. I was able to wake up 10 minutes before I had to catch the bus or drive to school because I had a uniform. People who have never attended a school where a uniform is required may think they’re the worst things ever, but they’re actually lifesavers. I never had to pick out what I wanted to wear every morning because my school had already made that choice for me. I also never had to care about what I looked like because there were always about 800 girls that looked the same as me. Nobody judged.
2. Crying in the middle of the hallway or in class was socially acceptable. In fact, it was weird when some girl did not cry after receiving a test or essay back. This was completely OK because the majority of us, although the teachers and fellow girls could not physically see our tears, were all crying on the inside.
3. The “bond of sisterhood” is a real thing. Surprisingly, the drama that people usually hear about at an all-girls school was almost nonexistent. Even though there were cliques, nobody was really mean together like in the movie “Mean Girls.” We follow each other on Instagram and like each other’s pictures, we like each other’s statuses on Facebook, and we are all there for each other when tragedy strikes or when something marvelous happens.
Looking back at it, I would not want to spend my high school years anywhere else because I know all the girls I met throughout my four years are now my sisters and we will always have each other’s backs. Even though we are thousands of miles apart, we all share the struggle and joy of attending an all-girls Catholic school. And if you’re reading this and I did not attend high school with you, but you can easily relate, you’re my sister too. This one’s for my high school and my fellow graduates of the class of 2016; stay immaculate, ladies.
