In 2023 the Morgan PawPrint had one of its most successful years, with over 59,000 site views recorded, and almost 5,000 individual viewers. The PawPrint also had over 44,000 different stories clicked on this year. The story views peaked on May 15th with 682, and October 27th with 782. The pit of our views this year fell on July 15th, with 29. We also recorded an average site view time of 178 seconds. This year 1504 stories were published, falling into 6 different categories, with 78 on sports, 232 on our Morgan, 69 on academics, 62 on our town, 26 on opinion, and 54 videos, with our Morgan being the most viewed. We managed to record views across all 50 states this year, CT: 23,502, NY: 3,374, MA: 3,157, CA: 1,769, VA: 1,618.
Our most viewed article this year, by far, was European vs American Schools, recording 7,919 views. This article was written by Can Yucel in 2021, a student who graduated from Morgan in 2022, and completed his senior year in the U.S., after coming here from Turkey. The article included key differences and similarities between the two sets of schools, including classes, sports, dress code, and his observations. These views are attributed to the fact that the article comes up when questions related to the topic are put into search engines. The oldest story that continued to chart this year was Chapsticks and Scantrons by Justin Escobales, published in 2013. The article explores the phenomenon of chapstick being rubbed on Scantron answer sheets, leading to a perfect score. The myth was widely known then and has continued to be a popular search topic, despite The Morgan School retiring the Scantron machine years ago. These views are attributed to the fact that the article comes up when questions related to the topic are put into search engines.
Unique breakout topics this year include the 1963 reunion, which was written by Gavin Gersz. She wrote a story about the reunion and included high school pictures of those featured in the article. Gavin spent a lot of time researching for this article, including senior quotes, photos, details of school events, and the classes of those who attended the reunion. Another unique article published this year was The Problem with Pierson, which discussed the vacant elementary school in downtown Clinton. Author, Lena Flaherty, explores the zoning and historical issues behind the repurposing of the building.
In 2023, we saw common trends of the PawPrint continue. Popular stories continue to be those of success stories of students at Morgan, including the top 10 of the class of 2023, Senior Spotlights, and college decisions. The PawPrint would also like to thank the 15 seniors who graduated in 2023, that worked to produce articles throughout their time at Morgan.
Katie Martin, Muntara Singh, Aurora Smith, Caroline King, Magdalena Ramos, Lola Damiano, Logan Pernal, Mikayla Brotz, Marin Stopkowski, Amelia Whelan, Rachel Hromadka, Iris Dunham, Shelby Stamp, Alex Cummings, Kristina Bergman, Sarah Williams
Story views for 2023:
Story views for the 2023 fall semester:
Story views for spring 2023: