I am currently a junior at NCSSM. I started around mid-August and, so far, I haven’t enjoyed it here. I really dislike all the regulations, requirements, work service, and some of my teachers.
I’ve begun to question whether going to this school will even yield a better result in terms of college compared to if I stayed at my old school, in which I would have likely received all A’s, taken over 15 AP classes, and been valedictorian of my graduating class. Here, I am doubtful that I will be able to receive all A’s, have to take required courses that are either not weighted or have a low weight (ResEd, AmStud), and would get very little AP credit; the only AP exam I would take this year is AP Bio, as American Studies does not prepare students to take either AP Lang or APUSH exam. I also dislike the trimester system and social scene, and I find the cafeteria food to be less than optimal.
Currently, my junior year schedule looks like this:
Physics with Advanced Topics (5.5 weighted)
AP Biology (6.0 weighted)
Multivariable Calculus(6.0 weighted)
DiffEq(6.0 weighted)
American Studies(5.0 weighted)
Adv Spanish(5.5 weighted)
If I had stayed, my junior year schedule would be:
AP Stats
AP Bio
APUSH
AP English Lang/Comp
AP CompSci
AP HuGe
AP Phys 2
(I would have enough AP classes to max out senior year)
At NCSSM, I would have likely been involved in summer research and mentorship, although other extracurriculars (clubs, competitions, community service) would be similar to the extracurriculars I would have at my old school. I would have more free time at my home school, so I would be able to prepare for the SAT/ACT/Subject tests more there. Catching up to the classes at my old school would not pose much of a problem.
All of this leads me to the questions: Is NCSSM worth it? Should I stay or leave and go back to my home school? Is NCSSM really representative of what university is going to be like?