Competitive high schools: good or bad?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Hey guys, I was talking to some of my friends recently (who all attend different high schools) about the effects of attending a competitive high school.</p>

<p>For starters, I do attend a pretty competitive HS. Southern California, Asian majority, IB school, well known for our tech program & scioly & compsci, etc.</p>

<p>My question is, do you think attending a competitive HS is more of an advantage or a disadvantage? I can think of a few pros and cons.</p>

<p>PROS:
better academic & EC opportunities
more motivated peers
school has good track record of sending students to "good" colleges</p>

<p>CONS:
harsh competitive environment, leads to lots of cheating
admissions officers expect more
can be hard to stand out, just on the basis of grades</p>

<p>What do you guys think? I just want to know a variety of opinions; some of my friends who attend less competitive high schools are glad that they don't have to deal with this stuff, whereas others are jealous of the academic perks and whatnot. :)</p>

2

<p>Pros: Same
Cons: Get criticized for going to a lesser selective college despite doing so well.
There are people that can do everything, but they’re scarce to the point that not every graduating class has one of these all around people… Thus, because the school has so many extracurriculars and so many APs, people don’t focus on one or two things, so the quality of everything overall goes down.~These days the focus is on taking excess AP classes over anything else and you also get multiple club officers that can’t dedicate the appropriate amount of time to their clubs.</p>

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<p>PROS: better prep before going into college
competition motivates you to do better
peers with same interests can help you collaborate on projects and schoolwork
academic teams will probably do good</p>

<p>CONS:everyone is so good at stuff
high competition getting into clubs you love
lots of stress trying to be better
people are focused on their own work and will never help</p>