Difference in high school cultures

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>Ok, this is something I find interesting. Please take the time to read the whole thing. I need input.</p>

<p>I recently saw this post and it got me thinking.</p>

<p>
[quote]
38 northwestern
4 penn
8 chicago
8 cornell
4 dartmouth
7 duke
8 caltech
5 harvard
4 yale
3 princeton
4 stanford
1 Mit
1 columbia
How??! WHY?!

[/quote]

[quote]

Because its a top public. We have tons of athletes and like 26 APs. Lol Brag time</p>

<p>The class is a little under 700 people I think, and the colleges like us
Almost 40% acceptance rate for NW
Average 33% acceptance at Caltech for past 5 years and 50% this year

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I see a lot of students in many high schools who try so hard to get accepted to the schools listed above. CC is an excellent observing pool as well. They easily sacrifice their social lives to maintain their array of As in classes, near perfect SATs, and follow their ECs with a passion (few do it with passion I guess, but people do them routinely). </p>

<p>Anyways, schools that output students like the one above IS COMPLETELY OPPOSITE from the ones I find in my school.
The students...they believe that getting into those schools are pointless. They'd rather spend the time they have now with their friends instead of prepping for math and science contests. They prefer school drama over Model UN.
The community service they do is more associated with doing things (fundraisers, etc) with friends. Prom set up is a big deal...homecoming and school spirit are given a lot more focus. GPA comes secondary.</p>

<p>Our school this year had the following acceptances. Our class has 467 students. 50% are going to community colleges.
1 Yale
2 Duke
1 Cornell
7 Berkeley --> We're from California...</p>

<p>My point is, we aren't science/math oriented. Nor are we competitive I suppose. Our school culture is more school spirit/school service oriented. While there may be a minority interested in landing into huge colleges and science ISEF activities, etc..the overall culture is geared towards school spirit.</p>

<p>My question:
1) Are schools such as these disadvantaged in the admissions process?
2) Would you want to attend such a non-cutthroat school? What do you personally think about these schools?
3) What is the culture like at YOUR school?</p>

2

<p><em>Anyways, schools that output students like the one above ARE COMPLETELY OPPOSITE from the one I attend
The students in my school…they believe that getting into those schools are pointless.</em></p>

<p>So sorry…my grammar is horrendous.</p>

3

<p>To be honest, I’m switching schools next year because I go to a non-cutthroat school. It’s my first year here too. Ironically, we’re ranked one of the top private schools in Canada. Granted, my school is Canadian so many of our graduates end up in Canadian universities. However, most of the students still lack motivation and drive to excel in high school. </p>

<p>So no, I would not want to attend a non-cutthroat school, but I don’t think that it’s fair to condemn these schools. Really, it’s a matter of personal choice. Some people enjoy that kind of a lifestyle, and that’s completely fine as long as they’re fine with it. However, I feel like the teachers could put a little bit more pressure on the students though. Sometimes I feel like the students at my school are laid back because the teachers have always been pretty loose on them.</p>

4

<ol>
<li>Yes</li>
<li>Yes/No. depends on how chill. Too chill = bad, but too stressed = bad too. S’all bout balance.</li>
<li>Worse than yours</li>
</ol>

5

<p>1) I’m guessing yes, and horribly so. If you take a school that offers something like 26 AP courses and promotes extracurriculars that are perhaps more suited to the academically inclined, then obviously it follows that such a school would produce more impressive students—people who could really stand out in the admissions process. On the other hand, a school that doesn’t do this and is for whatever reason more athletically or artistically inclined than anything else would be put at an immediate disadvantage for these top schools.</p>

<p>2) I do attend a school like this, and, quite honestly, I like it quite a bit. What I’ve noticed is that in schools that focus more on promoting school spirit, the school itself ends up possessing a kind of vitality that simply can’t be produced by rigorous, and, if I may say so, sometimes soulless academics. It’s enjoyable to go to school and to be a part of the school community.</p>

<p>3) The culture at my school is very school spirit-oriented. I go to a mid-sized Canadian Catholic school, and to be quite honest, the academic life here is lacking—we offer a whopping one AP course. There are, of course, students that perform well academically and get accepted into rather good schools; I’m personally acquainted with one senior who this year was accepted into the most prestigious university in Canada. But we have virtually no “academic” extracurricular activities. No debate club, no Model UN, no language clubs… Instead, we’re big on football and volleyball, and we also offer an array of other, less prominent sports. The Performing Arts is a huge priority too—we have a provincially-recognized choir and an impressive band program. And you know what, I like this a lot. I think my school is fantastic, simply because it educates dimensions of the human person beyond mere academics. But perhaps it is not, as are other schools of its type, suited for certain students who wish to focus solely on broadening their intellectual horizons.</p>

<p>Heck, I’m ranked #1 in my class, but at many points of the year I cared far, far less about my classes than I did about this year’s musical or play or choir routine.</p>

6

<p>1) Are schools such as these disadvantaged in the admissions process?
In some ways, yes. Schools like that might be disadvantaged due to the lack of APs, lack of competence, and the inability to prepare the students for college, not the schools’ reputations. </p>

<p>2) Would you want to attend such a non-cutthroat school? What do you personally think about these schools?
No. I went to a non-cutthroat junior high and I found it too uncompetitive for my Choleric soul. </p>

<p>3) What is the culture like at YOUR school?
I attend a well-regarded school in my country. We have loads of homework, and the school’s atmosphere is academic-oriented.</p>

7

<p>I actually prefer an academic aired environment. I like to compete and gain knowledge. Learning for the sake of learning.</p>

<p>I believe if I meet people like me, with that mindset, I can make satisfactory friends. Knowledge is permanent. To me I’m like “What is school spirit?” Its pointless. You just lose your vocal chord doing all the useless cheers.</p>

<p>I understanding having school spirit for Ivy League leveled universites (or since we’re talking about high school, Thomas Jefferson HS, Exeter, Santa Monica HS, etc)
But for school spirit, I would want to represent my school in local/regional/national competitions.</p>

<p>idk. To me, this culture of high school power is very intoxicating. Students come to believe that that IS NO WORLD out of the one they are in, which is high school.</p>

8

<p>

</p>

<p>And my question is: What’s wrong with that? You’ll never get another chance to be a teenager. Might as well live it to the fullest, instead of being preoccupied by concerns about the future and whatnot.</p>

9

<p>My school is like yours, except most of us don’t have school spirit. So we’re not oriented to anything. (The perils of a brand new school.)</p>

<p>And yet we have 26 APs. Most of my classmates will be at state schools around Georgia. Some at the big UGA, and some at Georgia Tech.</p>

<p>The only competition is for class council positions, which no one gave two flying *****s while I worked on it ALL of last year. I didn’t bother running. :p</p>

10

<p>1) I actually don’t think so, it’s just filled with more apathy</p>

<p>2) I rather like the non-cutthroat. I like my throat not cut and I like my school.</p>

<p>3) Hmmm, okay the big named ones that are going this year are Williams, Amherst, Bowdoin, Tufts, and Carnegie Mellon. We had a guy who got into Northwestern, Tufts, Rice, Harvey Mudd, Rhode, probably all the ones above too, basically he wasn’t rejected from a damn school he applied to and the ones he did, it was because they sent him an application. His brother goes to Yale (his brother is a real a-hole though, I knew him well) and he could easily get into MIT but he said he didn’t feel like writing all those different essays. He didn’t apply to ivies because he didn’t want his mom to force him to go if he got in. Also, he’s going to A&M with his friends, he’s in engineering so A&M isn’t bad, it’s just not that much of a competition for in-state students.</p>

<p>Anyway, we had a bunch that could easily have gone to nicer named schools than UTSA or state schools but I guess most just felt like staying near home. Overall everyone does get a full ride to their schools. Also it’s mostly just IB and AP that even go to college, everyone else just either joins the workforce or goes to community college.</p>

<p>But! I really like my school. They did educate me about colleges and it’s the only school in the city to offer IB. Further we have a lot of cool things like the #1 or #2 JROTC in state, a cosmo program that gets girls their cosmetology license and high school diploma so they don’t become those “beauty school drop outs”, a similar mechanics program so guys can legally work as a mechanic after school, this other program for parents in high school so they don’t drop out and they get health and such information for their kids (we have a ton of pregnant girls, I’d say at least a 3rd of girls have children before graduating), a regional champion academic decathlon that goes to state every year (made up of mostly AP student since IB students aren’t allowed to join because it’s too much work on top of the IB work). We have a similar winning regional swim team and we don’t even have a pool!</p>

<p>I guess kids aren’t so interested in high ranking college but just going to college fully paid, I mean mostly everyone has a 0 EFC and colleges surprisingly don’t feel the need to fully meet aid without tons of loans. Like we had a lot get into NYU but they suck. Kids also are a bit reluctant toward ivies because it’s this fear of ivy-kids, like kids that have been raised to go to ivy and act snobbish. I guess we’re all kinda poor? And there’s a fear of the rich so just about everyone actually gets into Amherst (they send a lot of applications) but no one cares to go there. </p>

<p>Overall I’m not worried about going to Carnegie, if someone says “well, I went to the #1 high school in the country” I’ll probably just say “I went to an inner city public school…guess what? we ended up at the same freakin’ college”</p>

11

<p>I think that it would have been better that this was posted in College Admissions</p>

<p>Since this is directed toward, I guess I should write more.</p>

<p>1) Are schools such as these disadvantaged in the admissions process?
I never thought of it as disadvantaged. Of course there is an advantage in having this kind of school. But if you really belong in these kinds of schools, it should be seen in your class rank and ECs. </p>

<p>2) Would you want to attend such a non-cutthroat school? What do you personally think about these schools?</p>

<p>My school actually is not that cut-throat (not ranked). Some of the 4.0s aren’t interested in the East Coast. I like non-cutthroat schools. The people are more friendly and not on your back all the time.</p>

<p>3) What is the culture like at YOUR school</p>

<p>Not THAT many people are obsessed with college. In my grade, sophomore, I know like 4 intense ones. Most of the smart people are pretty chill and haven’t been obsessed with admissions. Its a pretty “normal” high school. Athletics are important here, especially tennis and swimming, which we have won multiple state championships. </p>

<p>One of the things is that the property tax here is HUGE and major spending goes into high school. Lots of people want to move to the city or surrounding cities just so they can go there.</p>

12

<p>1) Are schools such as these disadvantaged in the admissions process?
2) Would you want to attend such a non-cutthroat school? What do you personally think about these schools?
3) What is the culture like at YOUR school?</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I think students at these schools are definitely at a disadvantage, beginning with the fact that higher-powered students with greater ambition don’t have examples set for them the way they might at a more competitive school. Being the best at a lax school, you don’t have to try so hard to be the best. The top kids at my school have all taken somewhere in the range of 7 to 10 AP classes. Some kids on CC have taken around that many AP exams in ONE SCHOOL YEAR. Competing with that is rough, and at laid back school, you might not even know people like that are out there… And when most of your peers aren’t this motivated, it’s hard to find people to relate to about the top-tier college selection process. At my school, there was a small handful of us that were even shooting for the top 25. So who was there to guide us? A lot of our parents hadn’t taken this road as kids, and the guidance counselors had little to NO good advice. They’re used to handling the average student at our school that goes to community college or a lower-tiered four year university.</p></li>
<li><p>I did attend one, and it wasn’t as bad as other schools in my area, even, but I feel it would have helped me had I gone to a top-ranked high school. Not that there are any of those even remotely close to my town, but…</p></li>
<li><p>My school is how I describe it above… There’s room for improvement. Clubs were sort of a mess, but I joined some… But clubs at my school are notoriously unorganized. NHS was so bad, we went to email newsletters instead of monthly meetings… I poured most of my EC efforts into independent volunteering at a local elementary school, which I was actually passionate about. So it’s definitely possible to find something else to do, EC-wise, even if your school sucks.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>We produced results that were respectable, but being at a competitive HS would have benefited the top kids for sure. We had Cornell, Northwestern, Berkeley, Virginia one class, and UT-Austin, Northeastern, and Yale(3rd(?) generation legacy) for the other.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>And my mom’s answer is: You’ll only know the problem once you become an adult/parent and think like one.</p>

14

<p>My HS…</p>

<p>No APs, honors etc…</p>

<p>40 graduates, 4 didn’t graduate. 4 walked pregnant, a few more had babies JR/SR year.</p>

<p>1 went to a top 100 school (Emory…me)</p>

<p>around half the class went to college, including technical schools/community college.</p>

15

<p>Wow. While I understand that the main goal of every school is obviously to teach/educate its students, you can’t just go through high school striving for straight A’s and Harvard while sacrificing your social life and happiness. There needs to be a balance between academics and fun and I know a LOT of intelligent people headed off to top universities in the fall who did not hole themselves up in their room and study all the time. </p>

<p>And that’s why high schools have culture… because people are looking to enjoy their childhood and teenage years before they come to an end, without having thoughts of top-20 schools overwhelm their thoughts every second. Is that such a bad thing?</p>

<p>There’s nothing wrong with showing a little bit of school spirit. You certainly don’t seem to be a very happy person, that’s for sure.</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>In that case, you go to a very normal school like most students in the country.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Actually, that’s very impressive! We never had anyone going to Duke, none to Yale except this one girl four years ago, but we do have a person or two going to Cornell every other year. And this high school is considered a good school for the region.</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes and no. You face different challenges at different kinds of schools. If you are motivated enough, you learn to take advantages of the opportunities available to you, as I’m sure you have. Also, for you specifically, you’ll get to make up for the experiences you missed in high school in college :).</p>

<p>I agree with almost everything ringopuppers said. Honestly, even though sometimes I wished my high school can focus more on the academics, in the end I accepted it for being very laid back. I have wonderful friends who never stress over SAT and are very satisfied with attending a local public or private college even though they’re so smart and quite capable. But on the down side, you can’t really complain to people for getting anything 1900+ on the SAT, can’t take that many AP classes even if you wanted to, etc. It’s was tradeoff. </p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Yep :(. For some reason I also feel that you didn’t find the right group of friends in high school (not that your whole school was horrible). It took me a long time over the past four years to find people that I liked who, though having no interest in going to your typical ‘top colleges” or participating in math contests, were talented, kind, thoughtful, and just simply awesome. I also had friends who were more motivated and had similar interests – I’m sure if you searched hard enough, you would’ve find people whom you can relate to.</p>

18

<p>Beginning of 8th grade was the high school application/admission process (in NYC). I was accepted into one of the top ‘specialized high schools’, one of the top public schools, and 3 catholic schools. At the time, I wasnt thinking about college or anything like that. I chose one of the catholic schools. Now that I see where my school sends kids (mostly SUNYs, CUNYs, and St Johns University), I wish that I had gone to either the top public school or the specialized hs.</p>

<p>I mean there ARE kids in my school who go to some good schools (this year we have 2 Harvards, 1 UPenn, 2 CMU, 2 GWU, 2 Cornell, 1 Columbia… but thats like… it. And this years class is considered HUGE for my school) But barely any -_- Out of a class of about 650, aprox. 10 will go to a top school</p>

<p>Then I hear of those 2 schools I mentioned earlier, and the schools their students go to. A whole lot of Columbia and Cornell, and a bunch of JHU, MIT, Barnard, etc.</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>Which school do you go to? I graduated from a Catholic school recently and it was much worse in that regard. In my year, I’m the only person headed to a top school (Cornell).</p>

20

<p>99% of students at my son’s all-male Catholic HS go on to a 4 year college/university; the other 1% is PG, Associates degrees or military. The culture is about academics, as much as it is about atletics. Further, 91% of them graduate college in 4 years. Class size is 315 or so, and they have multiple kids going to the most competitive schools each year - including full coverage of the Ivys and LAC’s in the north east, as well as top engineering/tech schools.</p>

<p>My daughter’s co-ed Catholic school is half the size (and half the tuition), with 93% of students going on to 4 year colleges/universities - many of them selective and highly selctive. Another 3% go to 2-year colleges, and the other 4% either work or join the military.</p>

<p>We are agnostic, but my kids go to Catholic HS, because our regional HS’s stats are abysmal - with 62% of kids going on to college at all… and of that figure, only 51% to a 4-year program. Hardly any of the schools are competitive. Lack of resources and parent encouragement are the root cause, I fear.</p>