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New Trier has allowed students to skip lunch for decades. In 2005, the school board debated whether to make the lunch period mandatory. But many parents and students argued that more electives and honors courses create an edge in the college admissions game, and that ended the discussion.
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While some perceive an advantage in a heavy course load, New Trier Township District 203 Superintendent Linda Yonke said that's not necessarily true and that the school needs to educate parents.</p>
<p>The students who go on to elite universities don't get there by cramming their high school days with classes, Yonke said.</p>
<p>"Look at the profiles of the kids who do get into those top colleges, and look at the reality, not the word on the street or the urban myths," she said.
<p>Harvard interviewers in the Chicago area get a list of all the admits and waitlistees. New Trier doesn’t actually do that well, given its size and reputation. I don’t know if it’s just because the Ivies are drowning in well-off white suburban applicants, but the new Chicago magnets (especially Payton and Northside) are placing as many or more kids at Harvard despite being 5-10 times smaller. If they’ve got dozens of lunch-skippers in each grade, the vast majority aren’t getting into Harvard.</p>
<p>Maybe they’re all going ED at Penn or something. But more likely, the superintendent is right, and this doesn’t boost kids’ appearance to colleges at all.</p>
<p>“Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Glenbrook North and South, and Oak Park-River Forest High School require that students take time out for lunch.”</p>
<p>I can tell you that there are plenty of days my daughter wishes she didn’t have to go to lunch! But she DOES have to get to school early every day for PE because she couldn’t fit it in her schedule. And she is NOT in music. Those kids have it insane.</p>
<p>Yes, considering the size of the school (4600 or so) and the scores of high achieving students, New Trier doesn’t place many into the top ivies/Stanford/MIT. Those who do get into those schools are often athletes or legacies. </p>
<p>A lot of the types who would miss lunch (or do something called “early bird”, which are classes before school) do actually do ED at Penn so it’s funny you brought that up. </p>
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Oh yeah. It’s worse than going to classes early. It’s worse than taking an AP instead of a regular honors course. New Trier, though not explicitly, really creates a pressure on students to overload in quantity and quality of classes.</p>
<p>No kidding. What on earth are these school officials “teaching” kids. No wonder our country is so unhealthy…no downtime, no food… you couldn’t pay me enough to send my kids to a school system that operates like this. And for what? Stressed out kids that have bad, unhealthy lifestyles. What a “winning” combination…not.</p>
<p>To top it off as administrators they are wimping out. People make choices every day at every age. These administrators don’t want to be in the position of asking kids to make choices. What kind of lesson is that? All three of my kids couldn’t fit all the classes they wanted to take into their schedule and each had to make choices. They have learned how to make thoughtful decisions and choices that fit them as individuals. A good lesson that we didn’t have to teach them. There are alot of “what ifs” in life and learning that is in and of itself a life lesson. Sorry, New Trier sounds like a system where even the administrators “can’t make decisions.” Ugh.</p>
<p>In my kids’ Chicagoland hs (not New Trier), you could skip lunch with parental permission. We had a situation in which D had picked classes assuming that she would make a varsity sports team and thus fulfill the PE requirement (in Illinois, PE is required all year round all four years). She didn’t make it and thus she did have to skip lunch since she had to add PE back in. She ate during a 20 minute study period instead.</p>
<p>So, it is food for thought that New Trier believes that thought for food will fatten up their admissions to the most delicious Ivies? They want students who hunger for success, who thirst for knowledge, but are a bit too literal about their goals. Is it a new trend on Ivy applications, “I skipped lunch for four years to enhance my slim chances of being admitted here.” Someone should give them all a cookie.</p>
<p>At our HS, lunch is a full 40 minute period. It is completely optional. But the kids are allowed to brown-bag their lunch in virtually every classroom. Most kids including my D opted to brown bag it - she said the forty minutes in a noisy lunchroom wasn’t worth it especially when she ate her lunch in way under 10 minutes. Her choice had NOTHING to do with college apps.</p>
<p>It seems as if a lot of parents on CC have the idea that if something is true for my kid, then it must be true for every other kid too. I bet there are plenty of unstressed, healthy high schoolers who for whatever reason, decide not to have a lunch period.</p>
<p>I’m missing lunch to take an honors course, i have it twice out of a four day rotation. It is somewhat annoying, but teachers let me eat in class; but I never do. Idk I wouldnt reccomend it, you need a break from all the class, especiially if its AP after AP.</p>
<p>I went to NT, and I did the APs, though back then parent’s didn’t “put” their kids in APs the way they did now, so anyone who was in there could do the work. For example, I didn’t do math APs, only top level. Now that would be inconcievable.</p>
<p>We moved out of the district when we realized how insane the parents have become there. This level of competitiveness starts by fifth grade. It’s unbearable, but if you are always in it, I guess you never 'see" it. It is unsurprising that the school’s rep is going down. They need to break into two schools. There simply aren’t enough opportunities for all the kids, and the teachers have no idea who anyone is.</p>
<p>Any school above 2000 or so simply cannot meet the needs of the students, inner city or suburb, it’s too many</p>
<p>Count my son as one of those. He wanted to take as many classes as he could in subjects he was interested in. He was also one of these -</p>
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<li>except he was going to school early for music classes, not PE. He did eat in his classes three days a week (two days there was a twenty minute gap). His mother was particularly proud that one of his teachers commented on the really healthy lunches he ate during her class. Different strokes, different folks.</li>
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<p>Permitting students to take an extra class instead of lunch makes a mess of the school building and perpetuates inequities between lower and higher income students.</p>
<p>It makes a mess because obviously kids aren’t going to go without food for the entire school day. They’re going to eat in class, and the teachers are going to let them. The vermin will love it.</p>
<p>It perpetuates inequities because the lower income students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, and their parents may be counting on them eating those lunches to help balance the family food budget. But in order to eat the lunch they’re entitled to, these students have to schedule a lunch period. They can’t take one more class. And this means that their transcripts will not look as good as those of kids who can afford to skip lunch and bring food from home.</p>
<p>Our HS allows kids to schedule through lunch, which is common for kids in music, as chorus & band are scheduled periods during the day. In order for them to get academic classes & the distributed electives, most music kids give up lunch in Soph & Jr year. </p>
<p>D1 considered lunch period a study hall in her early years and did homework in the cafeteria. In junior year, at the request of her instructor, she did drop-in tutoring for a low level math class during her scheduled lunch period. By senior year, it was her time to reconnect with friends and decompress. </p>
<p>S1 is a freshman and is much more social, so it’s his decompression period, as he has a heavy load of academic classes in the morning.</p>
<p>Our district is 20+% free & reduced lunch and I don’t see that it makes a difference on scheduling through lunch for motivated kids. (again, the only kids guidance generally lets overload are kids with music or dance commitments). We also have a breakfast option available free for the free/reduced lunch kids - I have no idea how many kids take advantage of this.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t this mean that a kid who is entitled to a free or reduced price lunch would not have the opportunity to participate in music or dance because he/she would have to go to lunch during that period? </p>