As soon as the applications for Leadership Class of 2020 opened, many juniors eagerly applied for the opportunity to earn a spot. This year, the application pool was extremely large, consisting of more than 80 hopeful students. The list of the first 25 accepted students was recently released, but more students will be added in the future.

“When I found out I was selected, I was super excited. I was actually at physical therapy and I was refreshing my page every five seconds, but it was a relieving feeling,” junior Ali Becker said.

The application required students to fill out a four page online form with questions about their individual involvement with WJ. Students were asked questions regarding personal strengths and working with others, as well as questions about their ideas for upcoming school events. Additionally, each applicant was to obtain three teacher recommendation letters.

“The application process is extensive because of how much of an important class Leadership is. It requires a lot of hard work but it totally pays off. It’s really rewarding when an event is awesome and everyone has fun,” Leadership member, senior Nick Orellana said.

The class group will be finalized in May after the SGA and class officer elections take place. The results of the elections will determine which students get added and in the case that there are open spots left, some waitlisted students from the current round of applications will be added. Leadership advisor Melanie Schwed plans on holding off meeting with the class until then.

“We’ll meet, we’ll do some team building, and we’ll talk a little bit about what their responsibilities before the school year starts are and what we do in the beginning of the year,” Schwed said. “I’m excited to do it all over again with one year under my belt, and to have some idea of what I’m supposed to be doing and what it looks like.”

Although they won’t be meeting until May, the students are eager to start as they have already begun talking about plans for next year.

“We already have a group chat and we’re trying to get everybody from the class and our friends to go to all the events this year,” junior Holly Darby said. “‘I’ve always wanted to help run the class so I can’t wait for next year!”