Is it worth it to transfer to another high school if I'm going into 10th?

Applying to College
1

Let me give you some background to both schools as well as myself.

I am a rising sophomore in high school.

Both schools are IB but are in different school districts. I’ll list the pros and cons of each.
BTW, I am not planning to do the IB Diploma.

School 1:
Pros: Good relationship with CS and Chemistry teachers. Familiar environment (I was in this school district for MS as well) Current valedictorian, ALTHOUGH our school district did just switch to a percentile rank, e.g. 99 percentile instead of 1 out of 500.

Cons:

(somewhat) limited IB course selection. I’ll link my course plan for this school along with the other. I want to challenge myself beyond my peers and the limit of the courses available don’t allow me to. For example, I took Calculus I last year in 9th and from then on, our school offers IB HL 1 and HL 2, from which I have heard are extremely shallow in their topic content. There is an IB Further Mathematics I would like to take but it isn’t available at school 1. There is also no second year of IB Chemistry. Finally, in senior year, I am left to take IB Music Theory (--) and IB Business Management (--). The point is here I would take those to keep my GPA up but at school 2 I can take more interesting classes and achieve the same thing.

Peers are clowns (as in highly immature) that I knew from MS and are friends with… sort of. My main concern here is that I don’t want to go out of high school knowing these people. Another thing is the scale of cheating that goes on at my school, including the ‘clowns’. For example, in our IB Chemistry class, half the class ditches class whenever there is a unit test. Then, they retake the test on another date, which is often still the same test. Their friends tell them the answers and they end up having perfect grades. What disturbs me is that after the teacher caught some students doing this exact thing and brought it up to their parents, their end mentality was that the teacher was too strict and they had done no wrong. !!!

School 2:
Pros: Endless course selection. They also have access to university courses nearby and a program that subsidizes them. The school’s courses will allow me to (severely) challenge myself.

Removed link to document - not allowed
ED

Strong Science Bowl team that I can get on (have tried out and talked with their team). From the people I know there, they are genuinely interesting people that love the things they do. While students at school 1 might only do things to pad their resume, students at school 2 just love bein geeky (that’s me) and into STEM.

Cons:
New environment nonetheless. Lose good relationships with teachers at school 1.

What should I do? How will this look to admission officers?

If you need any clarification on the above (probably not very clear) feel free to ask me.

2

I’ll list the classes I took last year here instead of in the Google Sheets.

9th:
IB Chemistry SL
Calculus DC
Lit & Comp 10
World History 10
Java Programming
Spanish II
AP Statistics
(A’s in all)

School 1:
10th
IB Biology HL 1
IB Econ SL
IB Film HL 1
IB Social Anthro SL
C++ Programming
Spanish III
IB Physics SL

11th
IB Biology HL 2
IB Math HL 1
IB English HL 1
IB History HL 1
IB Film HL 2
IB Spanish SL
IB Physics HL

12th
IB Math HL 2
IB English HL 2
IB History HL 2
IB Music Theory (for GPA class)
IB Business Management (this too)

At school 2 (the school I am trying to transfer too)

10th
IB Chemistry HL 2
IB Math HL 2
Accelerated English
IB Economics SL 1
IB CS SL 2
IB Biology SL 1
IB Physics SL 2
Spanish 3

11th
IB Psychology SL
IB Further Math HL 1
IB English HL 1
IB History HL 1
IB Social Anthro SL
Study Hall
IB Biology HL 1
IB Spanish SL

12th
IB Psychology HL
IB Further Math HL 2
IB English HL 2
IB History HL 2
IB Social Anthro HL
IB Philosophy SL
IB Biology HL 2
IB Spanish HL/Study Hall

3

I would transfer if you can. Sounds like you like the other school better and feel that you would fit in better. Liking a freshman year teacher isn’t important. Most likely you will have junior year teachers write your letters anyhow. Totally not worth staying in a school you don’t like for that tiny consideration. familiar environment doesn’t matter–you changed schools this year and it was ok, you can change again, especially since you think you like the new one better. Of course the grass is always greener and you will probably find kids that are immature, cheating etc, at the new school also.

4

7 HL and one SL classes senior year? With all the IA’s papers, etc. Have you thoroughly investigated what that entails?

5

I didn’t even look at the long list of courses. What matters is that the new school will have enough courses to challenge the OP, an activity the OP is excited about joining, and a peer group the OP likes.

6

But transferring from a school where you can “only” take 5 IB classes in a single year to one where you can take 8 doesn’t make sense if it turns out taking 8 is unrealistic.

7

@mathyone Okay sounds good. I asked this primarily because parents are on the fence right now and want somone else’s opinion other than mine. :wink:

@VickiSoCal Since I’m not going for the IB Diploma, for certain classes IA Papers aren’t a required part of the class. For example, for our IB Chemistry class, you don’t need to do IA’s if you’re not going for the diploma. Its also not only the number of IB’s for example. The last few IB’s I can take at my current school are Music Theory and Business Mgnt which I’m really not into.

8

Bump?

9

Why are your parents on the fence? Is it a long commute to school 2? I really don’t see any downside to school 2. OK, you will have to meet some new teachers, and get used to a new school, but is avoiding that really worth spending another 3 years in a school environment you don’t like? I’m sure the other school has just as many nice teachers.

10

Its a different school district and we will have to relocate to that district. It is also a long commute regardless since that school district is large and our apartment is far away from it. Yes my parents are taking into account what my preferences are but what’s holding them back is that they need to be sure there are either roughly equal or better prospects for me to get into a top tier college.

School 1 has historically been not competitive but in my year there is much more than in previous years. School 2 however historically was competitive (sends several kids to Ivies every year ) but isn’t as competitive in my year.

The problem with School 1 is that because of the courses available, every one of my peers that are below me but still competitive will end up taking the same courses as I do. So in your opinion, since I’m able to take the large load of IBs whereas my peers probably won’t undergo that, I would have better prospects at School 2?

11

Can we also PM about this?