This year, the Associated Student Body (ASB) decided to switch things up and introduce ASB wishes. The group invited Upper School students to fill out and turn in a form detailing a wish they want fulfilled. ASB then took all the suggestions and, using its budget, is now satisfying as many of the 200 wishes as possible . 

ASB created wishes due to the influence of a student from another school, Juanita High. A friend of ASB president Michael Gary informed him of their similar system. 

“[At Juanita High] it was something that brought their student body together,” senior and ASB executive Camille Neutz said. “We believed it would be a fun idea to celebrate the year and make people happy.”

In order to maximize the amount of wishes it is able to satisfy, ASB has to carefully balance the budget. Luckily, there are reserved funds for special occasions, which the ASB is able to use to get adequate support in satisfying wishes.

“Sometimes we get a few thousand [dollars] if we’re doing something super special and new like this,” ASB Vice President Kodaran Anand said.

The time and effort required for an ASB project is proportionate to the money given to the ASB to complete it.

“If we do a bigger project then we’ll get a bigger budget to complete the task.” Anand said.

Despite the months of work ASB has put into the wishes, there have still been difficulties along the way.

“Satisfying wishes has taken a little longer than we thought it would, because of time- demanding events that have gotten in the way, such as intensives,” said Neutz. “It’s something that wasn’t intended to be done in a month. We expected it to take a little while, and we’re still working.”

Neutz also notes that there are wishes they cannot fulfill due financial, logical, or moral limitations. Some wishes are outrageous or improbable to the point where a member of ASB deems it inappropriate, so they focus their time and money on the more feasible ones instead. Wishes with themes of religion can also potentially be offensive, so ASB avoids satisfying those.

“We have been rejecting ones that are too expensive or are religiously affiliated,” Neutz said.

With the 200 students that submitted a wish, there were bound to be students who would be disappointed. However, Anand adds that students clearly were getting carried away.

“The most creative wishes were rejected because of how ridiculous they would have been to satisfy,” Anand said.“I will not clip your toenails. We will not sell a student to you.”

Despite the extended and complicated process of granting wishes, it has proven to be a much less complicated event than the now defunct candy grams, in which students could give one another candy canes with notes for 25 cents each. ASB skipped this year due to its problematic premise of some students getting more candy grams than others, along with it needing to be done during finals in order to satisfy its holiday theme.

“A reason we didn’t do candy grams this year was because we had so many events going on and there were extenuating circumstances with ASB executives,” ASB President Michael Gary said.

Gary thinks that, so far, wishes are a difficult, yet potentially more impactful and beloved process to undergo than candy grams.

“ASB executives are seniors, and we have enough to worry about around that time since we’re worried about getting into college,” Gary said. “With ASB wishes, we knew we wouldn’t have a set due date to satisfy every single wish. I think wishes are more fun and have potential to be a favorite UPrep tradition.”

Most Outrageous Wishes:

“I wish Michael Jordan would walk through the halls.”

“I wish ASB would clip my toenails.”

“I wish I had a girlfriend.”

Source: Senior and ASB Vice President Kodaran Anand