<p>bergen academies in Nj is overrated. they suck. tenafly, cresskill, nvd, nvot can wreck them 24/7</p>
<p>hmm, the school i'm transferring out of is on the "Public Elites" and the one I'm entering isn't even ranking, sweet deal, no?</p>
<p>what i find hilarious is that my school isn't on there, but a much worser, urban one is</p>
<p>My school is on the elite list. :)</p>
<p>People hear me out. Maybe this will open your eyes and see what this Newsweek ranking system is doing to our schools.</p>
<p>My school is ranked #3 on Newsweek this year. That’s right, #3. It’s hovered around the top 5 on the list for the past few years, and was #1 one year. My school makes a big deal about those rankings and loves bragging about it every year, but I shake my head at the administration as it is worthless. Let me give you the inside scoop on how my school operates, and how this Newsweek ranking affected it throughout the years.</p>
<p>When I first came to that school as a freshman, The regular track for people went like this:
(I’d like to note that my school also offers IB as well as AP. My school is divided between non-IB and IB students, the non-IB students are lovingly called honors students, or “the stupid ones”. IB students can take any one of the courses listed)</p>
<p>List of the required courses someone takes
Math
9th – Algebra 2 Honors
10th – Geometry Honors/Pre-calc if you took Geo in 8th grade
11th – Pre-calc/AP Calc AB
12th – AP Calc AB or Calc honors / AP Calc BC / IB Math Studies</p>
<p>Science
9th - Bio Honors
10th – Chem Honors
11th – Physics Honors
12th – AP Bio/AP Chem/AP Physics/AP Environmental/Anatomy and Physiology</p>
<p>Social Studies
9th – World History Honors
10th – AP Euro history
11th – AP US History
12th – AP US Gov and AP Micro / Gov Honors and Econ Honors / IB Contemporary History</p>
<p>English
9th – English 1
10th – English 2
11th – AP English Language / English 3
12th – AP English Lit</p>
<p>Quite a lot of required APs my school has, yes? Shows you why we rank so high.
Just so you know, not all of my school is smart. Basically about 90% of the students, myself included, are serious procrastinators, and there are a nice number of people who take easy courses such as gym and art for an easy A.</p>
<p>Let me post the list again, only this time I will update it to this year when I graduated</p>
<p>Math
9th – Algebra 2 Honors
10th – Geometry Honors/Pre-calc if you took Geo in 8th grade
11th – Pre-calc/AP Calc AB
12th – AP Calc AB or AP Stats / AP Calc BC / IB Math Studies</p>
<p>Science
9th - Bio Honors
10th – Chem Honors
11th – Physics Honors
12th – AP Bio/AP Chem/AP Physics/AP Environmental/Anatomy and Physiology</p>
<p>Social Studies
9th – World History Honors / AP World History
10th – AP Euro history
11th – AP US History
12th – AP US Gov and AP Micro / Gov Honors and Econ Honors / IB Contemporary History</p>
<p>English
9th – English 1
10th – English 2
11th – AP English Language / English 3
12th – AP English Lit</p>
<p>Looking at the list, the only thing that changed was the optional decision for freshmen to take AP World, which isn’t a bad thing right? And also Calc honors is now gone and replaced with AP Stats. This may not seem that bad, not let’s not forget the ever so rampant senioritis. Now let’s look at the list for the upcoming year, when the school this year decided to pull a lot of strings</p>
<p>Math
9th – Algebra 2 Honors
10th – Geometry Honors/Pre-calc if you took Geo in 8th grade
11th – Pre-calc/AP Calc AB
12th – AP Calc AB or AP Stats/ AP Calc BC / IB Math Studies</p>
<p>Science
9th - Bio Honors
10th – Chem Honors
11th – Physics Honors
12th – AP Bio/AP Chem/AP Physics/AP Environmental/Anatomy and Physiology</p>
<p>Social Studies
9th – AP World History
10th – AP Euro history
11th – AP US History
12th – AP US Gov and AP Macro / IB Contemporary History</p>
<p>English
9th – English 1
10th – English 2
11th – AP English Language
12th – AP English Lit</p>
<p>Now how many changes do we have here? I see 3 changes here. Them being
- AP World is now mandatory for freshmen. I see it as ridiculous since they only tried the optional AP World thing for one year and now they just decided to force it down all freshmen’s throats? And not to mention there are a LOT of students who were suffering enough under regular World History honors this year.
- No more English 3. AP English Language is now mandatory.
- No more Gov and Econ Honors. AP Gov and AP Macro are now mandatory. Why they would also change which econ these seniors-to-be will take is beyond me.</p>
<p>In my freshman days, a senior could graduate taking a minimum of only 3 AP exams. Now a senior has to graduate from the school with a minimum of 8 APs! Now that’s pushing it too far. Especially with the imbalance with the social studies APs. Yes, my school is a college-prep school, but it’s going to turn itself into a mini-college soon. Not to mention most of these APs are taken senior year, where senioritis is almost inevitable. </p>
<p>Oh, and did I mention my school forces you to come take the AP or they charge you? And that they are imposing a “majors program” on upcoming sophomores this year which forces them to declare some sort of major and then take courses they specify that are in that major area? And that most of the courses in those majors are APs?</p>
<p>The point I’m trying to make is that those rankings are absolute BS and that they are increasing the drive for competition. High school is not college. It is supposed to be a period for experimentation, where kids make bonding friendships and take the time to figure out their future careers. High school should also be fun, as it one of the major milestones a person goes through before reaching adulthood. Why not have fun while you’re still young? </p>
<p>And also note the increased number of APs imposed during senior year. This year was the first year they tried the AP Stat instead of AP Calc thing, and my math teacher was already complaining about how our AP pass rate would plummet tremendously. He predicts a pass rate for AP Stats from about 90% last year to 20-30% this year. Now what kind of a “best high school” is this? If we were ranked based on our pass rate for this year, we probably wouldn’t even break #2000 now.</p>
<p>Before you go judging my character, let me tell you that I’m not one of those slacker types who want to minimize their AP exams. I probably have taken the most exams out of anyone at my school (16 in fact), and they are all from self-motivation. I believe that taking an AP exam is a good thing, it’s just that AP is not for everyone, and forcing an AP exam on someone isn’t exactly going to help them succeed in life. </p>
<p>It’s sad how competition is killing today’s society. Alas, what can we do…</p>
<p>I would have been either 290 or 315 on the list if I had stayed at my old high schools of either Diamond Bar High or Walnut High. But I moved to a much lower tier school so now I'm not on the list at all.</p>
<p>I go to a school where they celebrate an API score of 776. They literally paraded throughout the hallways even when class was on. I was so embarrassed to be apart of this crap.</p>
<p>haha #497 Blue Valley Northwest <-- thats my school! :-), and we were #560 last year.</p>
<p>We have like 22 or so AP courses so I guess that probably helped its ranking alot.</p>
<p>According to that, we are the second school in Kansas! Which is a surprise because it seems we have a lot of thugs, druggies, sluts and people like that.</p>
<p>My HS has all the same APs/IBs as Gator (except AP World and Anatomy/Physiology, but plus a couple more). We are known for having one of the strongest schools in the county (if not the whole state of California), but we aren't listed while other crappy local schools are. :(</p>
<p>According to how they calculate ratio/index thing, my school should be on there, but it isn't.</p>
<p>It says the ratio is the number of AP/IB/Cambridge exams taken by everyone in the school divided by the graduating seniors. According to my school's website, 189 tests were taken. We graduated 143 seniors. That gives a ratio of 1.3something. </p>
<p>Is there something I'm missing here?</p>
<p>My school dropped 15 spots but is still in the top 100.</p>
<p>Some schools just must not have reported their stats.</p>