Caution: Contains spoilers!

Between Oct. 19-22, hundreds of students and parents flocked to the WY theater to catch “selectED” on the big screen.

The WY documentary, “selectED”, follows real-life stories of WY students and hopefuls as they navigate the stress of high school and Chicago’s selective enrollment system.

Many WY students come from a variety of socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. “selectED” does a phenomenal job of portraying a different part of the WY community in each of the students they featured in the film.

For example, alumnus Jahlil Okafor ‘14 highlighted the success and prominence of sports, particularly basketball, in WY culture. His dedication to basketball as well as academics was portrayed through his college recruitment process and personal interviews with Okafor and his father.

Despite coming from an elementary school that was constantly lacking resources, another alumnus Jocelyn ‘14 describes how WY afforded her many more opportunities by showcasing her contributions of the dance department. In addition to being focused on dance, she always strived to receive a good education. Her parents were immigrants and were unable to receive a higher education. Jocelyn became the first person in her family to attend university. She ultimately received a full ride scholarship to the University of Chicago, where she currently attends.

Alumnus Andrew ‘14 was an exceptionally bright student on the Academic Decathlon team who struggled with depression. Although WY is full of phenomenal students, he makes it clear that at some point, the curriculum will be challenging and, sometimes, overwhelming. While taking time away from WY, he shows us the toll that the pressure and expectations has taken on him and his family. He received an overwhelming amount of support from Dr. Kenner, the administration and the counseling department, who all helped him get readjusted and graduate on time.

Although Dr. Kenner claims that WY is statistically more difficult to gain acceptance to (350 seats are available each year for 10,000 applicants) than Harvard, the rigid selective enrollment high school system and the intangibles of the college admissions process is not an appropriate comparison.

At the end of the film, it was revealed that one of the WY hopefuls was actually anticipating acceptance into the WY Academic Center, a program for 7th and 8th graders. Former and current Academic Center students make up a large chunk of the WY population. It was surprising that there was no mention of the pre 9th grade program, but also reasonable due to the film’s time constraints.

Since “selectED” was supposed to be a WY documentary, it would be expected that 8th graders would want WY to be their first choice school. A young girl that lived on the Southside of Chicago put Jones as her first choice school and was ultimately accepted there. This contrasted greatly from the rest of the movie that was promoting WY as a whole. She certainly articulated the difficulties of the high school selective enrollment system but overall did not fit into the rest of the movie.

Behind each face in the school hallways, there is a story-and that is exactly what “selectED” has portrayed. It is a truly inspiring film that shows the depth of how WY originally started off as an attempt to integrate a racially divided city and has surpassed that mission by becoming an outstanding, diverse intellectual community.