MARYSVILLE – Incoming high school freshmen are often uneasy about taking the next step in life, so many might want to shyly try to start school unnoticed.

That’s not possible at Marysville-Pilchuck.

Upperclassmen, as tradition dictates, formed a tunnel for freshman and their families to walk through on their way to orientation Thursday night.

And it’s not a quiet tunnel.

McKenzie Justice, who was near the front of the human tunnel with Ivy Enberg, said she remembers it well.

“You’ve never been here before, and then you have to walk through this. It’s embarrassing,” Justice said.

Enberg said she felt the same way at first, but when she had to do it again at an assembly, “I embraced it.”

Even Principal Rob Lowry admitted he wouldn’t have liked all that attention, “but 99 percent of the kids like it.”

At the orientation itself, many parents looked surprised when they had to part from their kids and go into another room to talk with administrators and teachers. The freshmen stayed and were taught the school fight song and other cheers by the cheerleaders.

Unimpressed by their enthusiasm, the student body president challenged them to “stand up and get loud” as he shot a short video of them for Snapchat.

The students were then broken up into smaller groups and took a tour around campus.

Jesse Duncan is one of the new freshman, coming there from Northshore Junior High. He said he was excited about going to M-P because he likes that he gets to have his own Chromebook. He currently has to go to the Marysville Library to play video games.

Jesse likes music and to sing, and also P.E. But he wasn’t sure what all M-P has to offer in the way of activities.

Dick Caldwell will be able to help with that. He is the activities coordinator at the school. On that night he also was cooking about 200 hamburgers and 100 hot dogs for the freshman barbecue.

Caldwell said M-P has so many clubs: ASB, foreign languages, auto shop, DECA, JROTC, even cinematography.

“We’ve got lots of things for every kid,” Caldwell said.