<p>We have friends whose son is at Ithaca and he loves it ( from Seattle) Strong theatre/music program but very competitive</p>
<p>General wisdom is that students are more attractive from outside their immediate region to schools who wish to have a more diverse student body</p>
<p>I can’t speak to the administration at his school , but I commiserate with your problems.</p>
<p>However- glitches in any public school ( or private) are not unusual-* yet students who are most successful learn to adapt and make the most of the situation<a href=“some%20it%20takes%20a%20while-%20but%20better%20to%20learn%20the%20skill%20than%20not”>/i</a>
For example- my daughter who attends ( IMO) the best public school in the city ( and has the highest number of NMS semi finalists in the state of public schools) had substitutes for most of the year last year in Spanish 3, consequently virtually none of the students in her class were able to go on to AP Spanish- so she isn’t taking a language.</p>
<p>Her school also has 6 periods, but because of schedule conflicts they only gave her 5 classes and we had to fight for those.</p>
<p>And I repeat * this* is what I would consider a strong school- with excellent teachers- a wonderful principal and attentive parents.</p>
<p>I agree with the advice to determine what you can afford- and have a range of options
Schools from what I have heard- mostly look at junior year.
However- my older daughter took a year off- with Americorps and schools were able to consider her senior year- this allowed her ( IMO) to attend a much more rigorous ( and expensive) school than she would have been admitted to otherwise.
This isn’t why she took a year off- that was just an added bonus- but I think for many students- a year off or a year or so at a community college can be very wise.</p>