Create a club as a freshman and dub yourself president. Rise up to “managing volunteer” at your local hospital. Spend all your summers in Bolivia or Ghana or some other developing country, reconstructing the entire education system while building houses for the less fortunate. And, while you’re at it, work weekends in a university lab, developing a 5-cent AIDS test for mass production.

Now all that’s left is to find the cure for cancer.

Regardless of whether or not you’re passionate about each and every one of those things listed above, our zero-sum, survival-of-the-fittest application process constantly reminds us that every little edge counts when applying to that dream school. That college with a sub-0.00001 percent acceptance rate, whose alumni names are automatically and permanently engraved into the bedrock of history.

So as a freshman, you walk into high school with your perfect four-year plan that you will most definitely follow, ready to take on all of your classes. But you’ll really be taking on your teachers, when you get that 89.3 percent in your algebra class at the close of the semester. Thus ensues the eight-paragraph email that you’ll be desperately sending to that unlucky teacher, replete with pleading and begging for that grade bump that will save you from the depths of shame, ignominy and — brace yourself — a B+ on your transcript.

The spirit of competition, of course, isn’t inherently terrible. In fact, it’s perfectly understandable — and even admirable, in some cases — for some of us to want to maximize our performance in high school. But the rising levels of school-related stress, the sheer amount of money some invest in college counseling and test prep, the incidents three years ago that involved seniors sneakily deleting each other’s college essays — all are unfortunate byproducts of our newfound obsession with beating out everyone else in our grade, and coming out on top.

This problem was so prevalent at Oak Park that the title of valedictorian — which was to be bestowed upon the most high-achieving student in each graduation class — was eradicated just a few years ago due to the sheer amount of qualified students, as well as the multiple parents who threatened to sue the school when their child wasn’t chosen.

If, while reading this, you feel as though you are one of those many students overwhelmed with work in pursuit of a single end result — then know that it isn’t just you: You constitute an unsettlingly large group within Oak Park High School, a group to which some of us may still subconsciously belong. Because once you’ve immersed yourself in the school’s ongoing, seemingly never ending competition, it’s difficult to pull yourself out.

Over the course of many years, we have, after all, bred a unique culture at this school that pressures us to be as insanely competitive as our peers — that, or risk falling behind.

And with this, we hear of a hot new after-school activity that a particularly successful student has joined, and we flock after him in waves. We hear that all “the Ivy League students” take six or seven APs as juniors and seniors — so of course, we must do the same. We hear through the grapevine that a student in our grade has scored a 36 on her ACT or a 1590 on his SAT, and, suddenly, we become belligerent, bloodthirsty hunters centralized in a jungle, crosshairs honed in on the target we’ve sighted, who will now surely steal away our spots at each and every college. As we bear witness to the success of our peers — though we may applaud their good fortune — all we can envision for ourselves is our own acceptance letters going up in flames.

A competitive student body certainly bolsters the school’s reputation and performance. But we need to ask ourselves if the hostility, distrust and underlying fear that accompanies the competition is worth it at all — and, even better, if we can do without that kind of mentality while remaining motivated, high-achieving students.

In turning our education system into one giant, crazed competition, we lose sight of what we’re really here for. This intermediary stage between our adolescence and burgeoning adulthood is supposed to provide us with the knowledge we’re interested in gaining, all the while emulating a professional environment that can train students to behave wisely. But disrespecting the authority of our teachers in pleading for a grade bump we perhaps just don’t deserve; deleting the college essays of our peers, in treating each other like animals in a jungle competing over slabs of meat — that is, leadership positions and common apps and scholarships and school-wide recognition — is a far cry from the behavior of mature adults in a workplace.

It’s understandably difficult to retract from a competition you’ve entered, perhaps unwillingly. I’m not asking you to drop all of your AP classes, or cancel your summer trip to Fiji, or stop going in to see your teachers at seventh period in pursuit of a fleshed-out letter of recommendation.

I would, however, like to encourage you to treat those teachers and your peers kindly in the process — to acknowledge that while some students may be your competition for certain colleges, they are still high school students, not trained hunters out for your blood. Acknowledge that the professional setting you’ll walk into years down the road won’t resemble, even in the slightest, a boxing ring of competition, but rather, a circle of trust and mutual cooperation among your coworkers.