Many students can’t wait for the end of senior year and what it has to offer: freedom, relaxation, and the end of an era. But for every Poly Prep senior, their high school career is concluded with a thoroughly constructed research project: Senior Capstone.
Senior Capstone has been a graduation requirement at Poly since 1985. The goal of the presentations is to display and celebrate “the culmination of four years of learning,” according to the Poly Prep website.
Poly’s Capstone aims to enable students to utilize their research and presentation skills to delve deeply into topics that interest them. In a typical class, students are assigned a more general topic to research during projects, but Capstone opens the door for students to explore the most niche and nuanced questions that interest them. Some examples from this year’s seniors include connecting the rise of political extremism and decline of folklore in America, dissecting Stanley Kubrick’s movies, the evolution of memory, and the theme of greed in “Squid Game.”
While Capstone is technically formatted as a second-semester class, the actual structure of the class lends itself to the independent nature of the project, meaning that for most of the class, students are silently doing research. Co-administrator of Capstone and Middle School English Teacher, Michael Gentile, explained the details of the class: “It’s very much trying to do a little bit of ‘this is what we need you to do,’ ‘this is what it’s supposed to look like.’ And other than that, getting out of the way of students and letting them work independently as much as possible.”
Senior Katie Dolin was very eager to start her project when she discovered what it would entail. In the process, Dolin has found the project outline beneficial on multiple levels. “I think the balance of freedom of your interest but also having kind of a mentor to lean on when you get in muddy waters with research is really helpful…especially having someone familiar with the research project and the ups and downs of it,” Dolin said. But with almost every advantage comes a downside; in this case, it’s that independence means the responsibility is entirely on the student’s shoulders.
While three or so months to work on a research project may seem like a long time, the amount of work that a student must complete feels daunting for many juniors. Eve Harris ’26 expressed that Capstone “seems like a lot of work to do in a short period of time.” With the time crunch and senioritis present during the process, Harris hopes to “recycle something I already did independent research on… I think that’s kind of the smart thing to do because you can dive further in depth into something you’re interested in.”
Capstone has been around for 40 years, but changes are still being made, one of which is whether Capstone will remain a pass-fail course. After the pandemic, it was graded as either pass or fail to make it less stressful for students. But over time, students started omitting key parts of their Capstones. Gentile explained that in 2024, seniors weren’t completing all the components of their presentation. The presented change is being debated because for some, the college application process continues at the time grades (including Capstone) are released. “We are still figuring out what the balance is…but we understand that students are still in the college process and trying to [get opportunities] that require a certain GPA,” Gentile said.
Whether you like science, TV, music, or technology, there will be something for you at the Capstone presentation, which juniors are required to attend. If there is a niche topic you love, get excited, because that topic may be yours to tackle! Juniors — start thinking and getting excited about your Capstone now. And seniors, congratulations on finishing your presentations!
