If I could rate this "academic" program a 0 I defi...

If I could rate this "academic" program a 0 I definitely would. This course has turned a school loving girl into someone who dreads waking up everyday solely because of WCATY. The advanced students who get put into this program have no say over anything. If they want to leave the program they have to leave the advanced class, and for some people that is not an option due to personal reasons. In return for not being able to leave, you get hours of homework per night, sleep deprivation, no mental ability to do anything, and a strong urge to just say screw it and drop out. I have stayed up till 6am in the morning on a school night just to finish my WCATY, and when I finally went to bed I wasn't even finished. The workload that they give you along with the amount of time they give you to do it is absurd. This course has drained me physically and mentally. I have had to see social workers on multiple occasions and have even bought caffeine tablets just to help me stay awake to pursue my studies. I don't think that they take into consideration that we have actual lives and other homework to do when they are planning out our weekly assignments. My anxiety levels are through the roof because all I can think about everyday at every moment is WCATY and the amount of homework I could be doing at that moment. Now you might be wondering if we are managing out time well, we are. As 8th graders we are all doing a phenomenal job trying to juggle everything at once. Our first week of assignments we were given were just thrown at us. We had no time to prepare or even think about how we were going to manage it. Coming back after a stress free summer break just to have WCATY shoved back into out faces once again was not the most eazy experience. Everyday I walk into my adv. ELA class with the shakes, anxiety spasms, and a heartbeat so fast it could win a race all because of past experiences with WCATY. If you have any choice whatsoever, please do not enroll in this class.