competitve high school vs non-competitive high school

tl;dr: parents forced me to go to a competitive high school, I got B’s and C’s and they gave the option to switch schools, I didn’t because I was too scared and now my gpa has gotten worse (I failed math). But I have mutiple awards, opportunities and leadership positions that I would have to give up if I switched schools. What should I do?

When I was in the eighth grade, I was ranked 18 out of 357 students, and getting all A’s. My parents forced me to go to a STEM high school, which is the best in my state and one of the top 30 in the nation, but I don’t want to pursue a STEM related career and I don’t even really have friends here either. They gave me the option to drop out freshman year but I was too scared to go back to my local high school bc I thought my gpa was already ruined and that I could never compete with all A students that were already attending. I also had grown distant from my middle school friends and thought having no friends at my current school with generally nice people was better than having no friends at my local school with some mean people.
But now that I have been here for almost two years I deeply regret my decision to stay. My gpa only got worse and I failed math last semester.
But the thing is, if I leave I would have to give up a leadership position, and I assume because my local high school is larger there probably won’t be as many opportunities for me to have a leadership position.
What should I do?

Your ECs aren’t going to matter a hill of beans to colleges if you are failing classes.

That said, why are doing poorly in your classes? Are they too challenging? Can you drop down from AP/honors to normal level classes? Do you need to get a tutor? Work on your study habits? The reality is that just switching schools is not going to suddenly get your grades up unless you put in the work and identify the problem.

  1. Drop ECs if you are not doing well in school.
  2. Make sure you are in the right level class (CP, Honors, AP)
  3. Check this out:
    http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/2026961-what-to-do-when-you-arent-doing-well-in-a-hs-class-p1.html