Over the past several years, I have garnered an insight into the rarity that characterizes AHS that I think would be quite appropriate to share in my last Noah’s Notes column, as I move on to the In-Depth section of The A-Blast for my senior year.

As I sit and learn from my peers and teachers in each of the classes I take, I never cease to be amazed by the sheer talent with which I am surrounded. From world-class violinists to bassists, actors to fan-fiction writers, debaters to athletes to well-rounded students (all of which do not comprise an exhaustive list), I have come to understand why people such as my mother like to call AHS the “secret that is the gem of FCPS.”

While AHS, in communities such as my own, is often the butt of criticism, students walking the halls of FCPS enjoy the benefits of attending a school with the perspectives of youth from every corner of the Earth. Such is a fact that is often overlooked by those whose ignorance causes them to cite testing scores and IB enrollment statistics in order to argue that AHS is not “on par” with those of its FCPS neighbors. If education is just as experiential as it is instructional, AHS certainly offers an education that rivals none else. In fact, this diversity is what attracts faculty members who are certainly qualified to teach university-level courses (and Michelle Obama, for that matter), or teaching as a second career after fruitful and arduous primary careers.

It is this multitude of perspective that allows for the classroom debates, discussions, and presentations that abound in AHS classes to be of such great value. What fun would it be to learn from those who possess similar viewpoints such as your own?

For those of you in middle school who are on track to attend AHS, know that you have a bright future. Becoming an IB Diploma Candidate (and doing well in the program) will put you on an academic level equivalent to those attending preparatory schools in the mountains of New Hampshire and Massachusetts whose parents pay in excess of $50,000 annually for such an education. Interacting with AHS’s student population will expose you to a world which such students could never experience, nor contemplate.

For those of you who are AHS students and have not seen our school in the same light as I have, I urge you to look closer. Some of your closest friends might excel at physics or chemistry or art at a level you could have never guessed! Or even more likely, such friends might be developing such talents!

But most importantly, AHS fosters an environment that encourages the betterment of one’s self. The talent that I mentioned above that pervades our school often serves as an impetus to many students to work harder. Although at some times stressful, ultimately such competition only benefits one’s self.

Thus, although my columns have sometimes seemed to scour the administration or school policies to a degree that seems to express my dissatisfaction with AHS, the fact that I was able to publish such criticisms furthers my case. AHS publications enjoy a freedom that is rarely found in other American high schools, and with such freedoms are able to earn national acclaim.

I hope that my columns have allowed for you to pick up on the uniqueness I enumerated above that travels throughout the halls of AHS. It seems as if FCPS’s little secret is safe for now, and that is how it should stay.