@JustOneDad, I find your post curious. I understand the general “dearth of writing skills” complaint about HS education today; but the vast majority of posters that I see - at least on CC - aren’t athletic recruits, and have strong AP english language and literature courses and scores. Whether they can write well is another matter entirely, and it’s quite possible that high schools aren’t doing a great job of preparing kids to write well at the college level, but I don’t see that many people ignoring taking language arts courses. I’m curious to learn more about your observation.