<p>I have been hearing a lot of good things about "online schools". It seems "in" nowadays. Do you think it works? What are its advantages and disadvantages?</p>
<p>Are you referring to an online high school?</p>
<p>Individuals will possess alternative opinions. </p>
<p>This is my perspective though:</p>
<p>Advantages:</p>
<p>.Personable</p>
<p>-My class sizes range from 3 to 11 as opposed to my old high school, which possesses average class sizes in the 30’s and 40’s.</p>
<p>.Exposure </p>
<p>-At my high school I’m enabled to converse with students in different countries and states, something that has benefited me in acquiring information regarding others’ cultures.</p>
<p>.Self-oriented/self-focused</p>
<p>-I’m enabled to take classes that I find intriguing. The requirements are more lenient, enabling me to focus on what I’m interested in as opposed to fulfilling school obligations. In addition, I’m enabled to acquire more free time, enabling me to take AP classes, while also acquiring a sufficient amount of sleep.</p>
<p>Disadvantages:</p>
<p>.Friends</p>
<p>-If you’re accustomed to socializing at school and find that aspect to be a necessity, you might not find online schooling to be preferable. Despite this though, my school has clubs, something that has allowed me to formulate new friendships.</p>
<p>.Self-paced</p>
<p>-Procrastination</p>
<p>no terrible idea</p>
<p>I wouldn’t mind being a Florida Virtual School student.</p>
<p>That said, you should always pick the high school. Online schooling doesn’t work past high school.</p>
<p>I think it’d be awesome to go to an online school!</p>
<p>I would go if my parents let me! 
but then again, I do like my current school. Sure, it’s classes has it’s flaws, but I do like my friends!</p>
<p>The op is referring to online college not high school, based on the link. Odd first post, with an imbedded link???</p>
<p>I do online high school like Warts. It’s really going to depend on the person. You have to be self-motivated to do what your supposed to. We have clubs so I still work on newspaper and such. However, the clubs also don’t offer leadership positions. Like I’m an editor on the paper, but if you ask to be an editor you get to. So our paper sucks. It’s really annoying. I only mention this because I’ve never known a traditional school to do stuff like that. I feel like online schools tend to have more of an “everyone’s a winner mentality” which I really hate.</p>
<p>My school personally also doesn’t encourage anyone to go beyond the graduation requirements. I tried to take AP Psychology this year, but my teacher said I should take standard because you either “get it or you don’t.” So I’m taking standard and studying the AP myself. I don’t know if this is because it’s an online school or if its just schools here in general, but it’s really been annoying me. Most people don’t even know what AP is unless the teachers specifically mention it to them.</p>
<p>I personally wish I could go to a more competitive school, but those don’t exist where I live. And my parents wont just send me to a public school :(</p>
<p>And if you’re talking about online college, then ignore that little rant lol. I do community college and I couldn’t imagine doing it online, if only because it’s more fun to be in the classes.</p>
<p>I have done both online classes (high school and college) and real high school and college classes. I can tell you that in my experience, the real thing can never replace the virtual classroom. </p>
<p>It is very important in schooling to be able to work with your peers and professor in real time. With online classes, by their very nature, it is nearly impossible to do that. Plus, it is much harder to make friends and to interact with people- a very necessary skill outside of high school and college. You also don’t have access (for the most part) to ECs and sports and things of that nature. </p>
<p>In online classes, you tend to learn only exactly what is on the syllabus and rarely go any deeper than that. Or you learn to the test and nothing else. </p>
<p>All in all I would say this- online classes are OK for beginning college classes (100 level courses) and as supplemental courses for high school kids who want more of a challenge. However, it should NEVER replace a real high school class and experience and it should NEVER replace an upperlevel college class.</p>
<p>^Please come and explain this to my parents, lol.</p>
<p>Although it’s the end of junior year now, so it’s not like it matters :(</p>
<p>Based off of the following, I can argue against the ‘need’ for online schooling.</p>
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<p>I go to a normal (private) school where my classes range from 5-18… so this seems irrelevant to me for online school.</p>
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<p>My high school, although very small, has a very high density of foreing exchange students, especially in my grade. We have two from South Korea, one from Brazil, and two from China in my grade alone. That’s about 10% of my class. We also have several students whose parents aren’t from the US at all. My school has a lot of people who move to this area from other states. A lot of of yankees. [I’m in South Carolina.]</p>
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My school has a pretty basic graduation requirement. English 4, Math 3, Science 3, History 3, Art 1, Foreign Language 2. Beyond that… and I get to choose what I want to do. Even within those required classes, teachers allow us to study what we want. They ask us for suggestions. Like in my AP US class today, my teacher asked for suggestions for what to do after the AP exam.</p>
<p>So based on Wartsandall’s arguments, I find online schooling completely unnecessary. We do have two students who left last year in order to pursue online schooling. At least one really enjoys it.</p>
<p>We watched a video in economics today about for profit colleges and online courses. Basically online classes are convenient but not worth it. “You accumalate the debt of an accredited university without the accredited job.” (Quote from the video)</p>
<p>^^My statements were relevant to my perspective. Those are the reasons that I felt that online schooling was beneficial for me. That doesn’t mean that those are the sole reasons that individuals opt to pursue an alternative education though. Some engage themselves in competitive sports, pursue alternative interests (for example, internships), and work, amongst other aspects.</p>
<p>My mother’s an online college student. I’ve helped her write some papers and stuff and the whole thing seems pretty intense. From what I see, it IS a lot of hard work/studying… there’s always something due and there’s lots of assignments/papers/tests. </p>
<p>Obviously if you don’t want to/can’t commute to school than you may want to look into it. Also make sure you go for a legit online school, not some diploma mill.</p>
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<p>This. Even if I hate online school for myself, I know some people who get the time to do amazing things because of it. One of my friends who “goes” to the same school as me is a competitive figure skater. She’s just below Olympic level. She also acts in musicals, dances, etc. Another girl from my school who just got accepted to Harvard is apparently part of an ice hockey team that won some national championship in Germany. There’s kids in the California branch of my program that are on the Disney channel too, lol.</p>
<p>Edit: I have to say, it’s helped me too in that aspect. I started taking community college classes and ended up getting into music production thanks to my audio engineering class. Most of my time now is spent writing, recording, mixing, and mastering songs (which actually eats up a ton of time).</p>
<p>No… just…no.</p>
<p>Online schooling seems boring…
Staying on a computer all day, I would have the urge to see some people! Especially people my own age.
My bf did online schooling for a year and liked it because he just moved and hated the high school he transferred to. It seems super easy though! He had a D and the week before grades came out and I raised his grade up to a B. Haha I know that’s wrong…but it was just so easy…</p>
<p>The internet would probably be too distracting.</p>
<p>It seems like it’d be ok for lower education but not college.</p>