The back-to-school shopping season puts money on the line before anyone knows what a student will actually use. The Verge's 2026 back-to-school guide opens with that admission: knowing what students need, the publication says, is "next to impossible."
A mix of practical and aspirational
The guide covers products for use inside and outside the classroom. The Verge frames the effort explicitly as "pulling our weight" during back-to-school season. It says it includes items designed to make writing easier and more satisfying, alarm clocks capable of waking even the most sleep-deprived students, and bags that work as well for gym sessions as for a weekend away.
The range is deliberate. Practical products give the guide its credibility; aspirational ones extend its reach. A student who already owns a reliable bag will still find something to want here. The case for building a guide this way is that seasonal shoppers rarely arrive knowing exactly where they stand between need and want, and a mix serves more of them.
The counterargument
The counterargument is worth naming. A guide that blends essential and aspirational items in the same list, without clearly separating them, asks the reader to do triage the editorial team did not. For families working within firm budgets, the distinction matters. Writing tools and alarm clocks serve recurring, verifiable needs. A bag at the aspirational end does not carry the same necessity.
The Verge's own framing partly answers this criticism. It acknowledges upfront that some purchases will be forgotten and some items will prove unnecessary. That kind of honesty is rarer in back-to-school coverage than it should be, and it does more to earn reader trust than a list of indispensable picks would.
On balance
On balance, the guide's value is its breadth across categories that students genuinely revisit each year. Whether any specific item earns its purchase depends on a household's priorities, not a product recommendation.
The line to watch is whether an item works across contexts. The Verge's stated criterion for inclusion is exactly that: equal utility in the classroom and beyond it.