The typical stereotypes featured in classic high school centered movies and television shows favor portraying students as being either strictly academic or solely athletics oriented. While these stereotypes can be seen throughout high schools, occasionally there is the student who reveals to be both the stereotypical “jock” and “brainiac”. Cole Robinson (12), a senior at YLHS, is the epitome of this dichotomy. At first glance, he is the typical athlete, making the varsity baseball team his junior year of high school and playing since he was six. His afternoons are filled with baseball practice and games and his weekends, tournaments. Robinson recollects his favorite memory of winning league with his team freshman year.

But upon further investigation, one would discover a completely different side to Robinson; he is one of the top students here at YLHS. Robinson has acquired quite a long list of academic accolades and achievements. His junior year he was recognized for being in the top 10 percent of his class with a 4.65 GPA. His test scores show perfection on paper. He scored the perfect score of a 36 on the ACT and a perfect score on the SAT Math 2 Subject Test. Without taking AP Chemistry in school, one of the hardest sciences courses at YLHS, Robinson earned the impressive score of a 740 on the SAT Chemistry Subject Test with only a total of three weeks of studying with a tutor. Most students spend an entire school year learning and preparing for the test. Throughout his high school career, Robinson has filled his schedule with rigorous AP courses, earning perfect scores of fives on the Spanish and Calculus AB AP tests.

How does one person have the capacity to achieve so much academically while being committed to a competitive sports team at the same time? Balancing his schedule and time management is fairly difficult Robinson reveals. The success does occasionally come with sacrifice. Robinson recounts an occasion when he was forced to miss an important baseball game to take an AP test. While academics and grades are his top priorities, Robinson shares that he values and appreciates the sport of baseball because “it allows [him] to escape the stress of school”. This is understandable because keeping the nearly perfect academic record that Robinson has maintained thus far undoubtedly comes with stress.

Robinson is currently focused on his future. He has applied to several prestigious colleges as an electrical engineer. Recently, Robinson was contacted by MIT to play baseball at the University. Playing baseball at a distinguished college like MIT would be “the optimal collision of both of [his] worlds” according to Robinson. But currently, Robinson admits that he is “playing the waiting game until college decisions are released” and until then, his future is quite unknown.