The lottery for the 2016-2017 school year at Community High School of Ann Arbor was held on Feb 9. Every year the numbers are posted and hopeful, current eighth graders swarm to CHS to see whether they were lucky enough to have their number drawn this year. In the last stretch of their senior year, a few seniors reflect on their first lottery day.

“Lottery day can be both a very happy and sad day for students,” said Pamela Quintana, a CHS senior. “It’s important to keep in mind that you can make the best of wherever you end up, it’s really up to how one takes it and what they do with their choices.

While Quintana got into Community her freshman year, others were not so lucky. When a student doesn’t get into Community at the time of the drawing, they are added to a waiting list. Some are so far back on the list that they know they will never get into the school, others will get in soon after. Maya Gurfinkel, also a Community senior, had to wait until her sophomore year to get the good news.

Sometimes the lottery can be a hard experience, especially for kids with an older sibling at the school. Or in Gurfinkel’s case, she admitted that she thinks she was more upset than her younger brother when he didn’t get in two drawings ago.

Even though she was not at Community her freshman year, that didn’t mean her experience wasn’t good. Gurfinkel went to Skyline her freshman year instead. “I was still pretty bummed, but because I had other friends going there it wasn’t so bad and since I was part of field hockey and choir I made new friends pretty quickly,” Gurfinkel said. “It was definitely a big change going from a tiny middle school to a huge high school like Skyline. I’m happy I had that experience, though.”

Similarly to Gurfinkel, Janie Burns got into Community her sophomore year. She wasn’t absolutely crushed when she found out she couldn’t attend CHS right away, because she knew her number was low enough that she would get in eventually. Burns went to Ann Arbor Preparatory school in Ypsilanti her freshman year but is glad to have switched to CHS. “The atmosphere is really laid back and I think some people take advantage of that but it really helps me learn because I feel comfortable with who and what is around me,” Burns said.