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Gr 8 Up—This documentary examines the lives of students at Whitney Young High School, one of the top tier public high schools in Chicago. Ten thousand students apply annually for 350 seats. As one person says, it is "harder to get into Whitney Young than Harvard." Once there, the academic competition continues, and students thrive in this atmosphere of high achievement, where excellence is expected. This film follows several seniors during the 2013–14 school year. Students come from a variety of socioeconomic neighborhoods and from homes where English is not the first language. Some face an array of personal difficulties, including depression, physical disability, and parental drug abuse. For many, education is seen as a ticket out of bad neighborhoods. Principal Joyce Kenner and her staff of teachers work together with a collective of intelligent and motivated teenagers, a "school of number ones." The underlying question is, why aren't there more quality public schools like Whitney Young? This beautifully composed film is filled with joy, sadness, triumph, defeat, and hope.