I know that school competitiveness is mostly objective and no exact definition really constitutes the term, however, just in comparison of your school’s pass rate, number of AP classes per student taken, etc, how competitive is your school?
At my school, only about 15% actually take an AP class (according to Niche Rankings), and only about 47% pass. However, there’s an elite minority in 9-12th grades, comprising about 80 - 100 kids (Top 20 for each class) who take at least 5 AP classes by graduation. I’m pretty sure that the top 5 Seniors in my school have taken 10+, with the #1 Junior having taken 2 AP classes (APHG and AP European History) as a Sophomore.
I would have taken 13 - 16 AP exams, placing me (hopefully) at about the Top 1-3 by Senior year.
What about you guys? I’m curious to see how students at different schools compare (and just for personal curiosity).
Not very competitive, there’s many 4.0 kids but it’s not cutthroat. Also, don’t waste your time doing AP classes, they consume a lot of time. I’m going to do DE and have 60 college credits by the time I graduate. With ap classes that’s nearly impossible.
My high school is sort of similar to yours. There are about 500 kids in our class, but there are 150 kids who are CRAZY COMPETITIVE (tons of honors and AP) - we had tons of Northwestern, Vandy, UCB/USC, UMich etc acceptances this year, and about ten kids who got into Ivy Leagues. The rest of the grade goes to the two state schools or Loyola. Most of the grade takes at least one or two APs before graduating.
Sounds interesting!
Also forgot to mention that there is a Senior who was given a full-ride scholarship to MIT, Stanford, and Columbia.
@Chemical100 those schools don’t give out merit aid so that aid was all based on need, which they are very generous with for low and middle incomes. Still, amazing acceptances!
I see. Well, thank you for sharing infirmation!
Other than that, most of the top-tier students go to UCLA, USC, and UCB. There were two students who went to University of Pennsylvania though.
My school is semi competitive with half the grade being people who actually try and the other half people who don’t try at all.
(Large, 2100+ suburban high school in southern Maryland) My school is as un-competitive as you can be, we do have a 86% graduation rate but our average SAT score is 1010 (old test), and average ACT score is 22. It also have a minority enrollment of 100% and a niche ranking of B-.
My school’s Niche page says we have 35% AP enrollment with a 71% pass rate. It’s public and has over 1,000 students.
I think our lack of a ranking system prevents student competition from going out of hand. Everyone seems to be doing everything they can to get ahead academically, but there is a sense of community formed from everyone stressing together.
Extremely competitive. It’s a magnet school, everybody is required to take APUSH, AP World, AP Lang, AP Lit, AP Gov, AP Physics, and most take a few more. There are around 30 freshmen in pre calc every year. I doubt I’m gonna be in the top 7% (for UT Austin) but I think it’ll be okay.
My school is semi-competitive. I would probably sort people into four tiers:
Group 1: people who challenge themselves and do well
Group 2: people who challenge themselves and do okay
Group 3: people who don’t challenge themselves and do well
Group 4: people who don’t challenge themselves and do poorly
There’s the most people in groups 2 and 3, those are the kids that take a mix between honors and college prep (standard) classes.
Everyone wants to go to top schools, but about 10-20 kids each year get into schools like MIT, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, UPenn, Cornell, etc. out of the 300 person class.
Not that competitive… until you get to the top ~100 students (out of ~650 in a graduating class). Most of these ~100 people will take 7-8 AP classes by senior year, and about 40 will go the IB track. About 15ish seniors get accepted to Ivy League schools every year, and some go to competitive schools within two-three hours of our town.