<p>I've spent my last four years at a large high school in a top-5 city, but am making the switch to a school in a small post-industrial Northeastern town. My high school had 2500 students and my class was made up of about 600 people. I will more likely than not get into my early decision, and they guarantee that financial aid will allow me to attend, but I'm a little concerned about the fact that there are only 2400 students.</p>
<p>Has anyone else come from a large inner city school to go to a liberal arts college? What was your experience? Did you like it?</p>
<p>S did it and loved it. Much stronger culture and sense of community when people aren’t going home to their families every day. Ability to walk on to sports teams, which didn’t happen at his high school. People don’t judge you based on who you (and your family) were in elementary school and middle school - it’s a fresh start and you can reinvent yourself. More classes to choose from than at a public high school, and more small classes, where you can get to know the prof one-on-one and people in class with you are generally there because they want to be. </p>
<p>Will it get old? Maybe - a semester abroad is popular. And some people prefer more urban LACs so they can escape into the city on weekends or live off-campus. But it’s only 4 years of your life. Sounds like a long time - but it flies by.</p>
<p>a fresh start is one of the best parts about going to a school were nobody knows you and nobody cares what you did in 9th grade at a class function.</p>
<p>Funny, I always considered 2500 to be about an average size high school.
Never thought of that size as “large.”
My HS had a little over 2,000.
My D’s school is well over 2,000.
In fact, several HSs in our district have between 2300 to 2700 students.</p>
<p>But national mean numbers are skewed in the sense that most HSs can’t get any larger … there is either a somewhat finite number of people in a geographical area or, like in New York State, school districts do not usually follow governmental borders - districts can either be large or very, very small.</p>
<p>Our school district has many high schools. And, as I say, several of them are in the 2300-2700 range.</p>
<p>So, maybe to be more precise, I could have said “2500 does not seem large to me in localities where it is by choice or design.” Make more sense?</p>
<p>I suppose my perception of a “large” school might be skewed due to district-wide educational reforms that emphasize school choice (59 schools for 45000 high school students, 25% total enrollment is in charter schools), rather than small class sizes (all my classes are ~30 students).</p>
<p>I suppose my biggest qualm about such a school is that the town the school is located in is perceived as unsafe, so most students stay on campus at all times. Additionally, the people I’ve talked to that went on from my school last year to attend relatively isolated LACs (Muhlenberg, Ursinus) seem to dislike the insular feel of the school and the inaccessibility of major cities/lack of life off campus and their lack of diversity. I’m just not sure if I’ve managed to talk to all the people who’ve had bad experiences or whether I would really be incompatible with such a setting. The entire issue about preconceived notions regarding family / social status isn’t really a problem because my school is a magnet school that draws people from all across this city of over 1.5 million people.</p>