40 years ago, high school students traipsed through the narrow hallways of this school, setting the precedence for the future. Like today, students excelled in sports and academics, while also preparing for the SATs and ACTs. Interests varied slightly; however, in the end, the students still joined the same clubs and played the same sports.

A few decades ago, multiple aspects of this school were different such as the bell schedule and classes students took, while many aspects were the same such as the sports people played and the colleges they were accepted to. In the past, the students painted the bears in the front of the school and instead of parking cars in front of the school, students rode their bikes onto the school grounds.

In the fall of 1977, the varsity football team won a game against the Hayfield Hawks with a score of 6-0. Latin teacher Brian Metress scored the winning touchdown bringing the Bruins to victory. After an impressive fall season, the banquet honored numerous athletes for multiple sports.

Much like today, students stressed over preparing for the SAT, PSAT, and ACT. In 1975, the school year began with the  PSAT and registration for the ACT. The National Merit Scholarship Program chose 15,000 students as semifinalists. In Fairfax County, 120 students were chosen as semifinalists. In 1977,  the same amount of students were chosen as semifinalists.

The PSATs have been administered throughout the 90’s and still continue today. The test was also given in October, just like it is now. In 1991, there was a National Hispanic Scholar Award given to Hispanic seniors in order to identify academic achievements. Three students from this school were awarded out of 500.

A major change since the past to now is the amount of homework students had. In the past, students had at most an hour worth of homework. Complaints were made about the excessive amount of homework back in the 1980s. Students argued that homework during the weekends was obnoxious, and that they were too busy with other obligations to have to do homework. Students also argued that one hour of homework was too much to handle. Nowadays, students would not even complain if they had only an hour worth of homework. There is a great difference between the amount of homework that was assigned back then, to now.  There are seven classes in the schedule now, unlike the past where students only had six classes.