<p>For all you CCers who don't go to Exeter, Choate, large competitive public schools or some crazyyy Waldorf school- post your feelings! Post what size your school is, where it is located what classes they offer any frustrations experienced ect.</p>
<p>I'll start a graduating class at my school is 180ish. Its public and located in upstate NY. We offer no APs which is frustrating. We do offer an honors series in English and a few courses through the local comm. college through a dual enrollment program. By and large, my school is very non competitive. There is none of the cut-throatedness that I hear about which is kinda nice but I feel it doesn't push kids. </p>
<p>Frustrations-</p>
<p>I have been trying to get some APs offered in my school. I'm one of the 2 student reps. on the building planning team and have been pushing and pushing for APs. Now it looks as if we will get them... but not until after I graduate in '08. It looked like maybe just maybe we would be getting AP chem for next yr, my senior year. The (super awesome) chem teacher was gung-ho for it but no, our school cant afford the lab equipment!!! Ahhhhhhh!!! Oh well, maybe I can put 'instrumental in getting AP classes offered' as an ec on an app. Plus I'm still trying to get the math teacher offer AP stats.</p>
<p>I too do not attend a private competitive school, nor do I attend a competitive public school. I do attend an overcrowded, underfunded city high school with a student body of nearly 5000 students. Similar to your situation the school-educational panel (a group of which I am a member) has pushed for not only more APs but honors courses at well. Over the four years that I have been on the board, we added two new classes, which doesn't seem much but in a school of our size getting mass interest is hard. Furthermore, we made all of courses in the math department honors and added AP Cacl BC and AP Euro. I'm not bragging but saying that student groups can make big course changes and I applaud you for your effort. Push.</p>
<p>As far as the lab equipment, I'm sure if the students are willing to chip in and buy them you could run the class. The kits aren't really expensive although AP Chem textbooks are. The standard - Zumdahl's Chemistry - can run for 180. Unless your school orders more than a dozen, I doubt the publishers can do much for you. Maybe your school district can buy used copies off of amazon? Stats is the same way, although you need TI calculators for some of the advanced stats (of course one can do it by hand but it's tedious and takes up time on the AP). </p>
<p>So to answer your question since I have really digressed.
My school is in Northeastern PA
and we offer the following APs
AP Chem
AP Bio
AP USH
AP Euro
AP Calc AB/BC
AP Physics C (both)
AP English (both end)
AP German
AP French
AP Stats
Our main problem is that the classes all run during period 1 or period 7 and that makes it hard to take them all. Normally though teachers split the class, running it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays leaving Tuesdays and Thursdays for your honors or regular courses. This system isn't efficient but it works for our school. Good luck with your efforts.</p>
<p>I go to a minority, under-performing school in Spanish Harlem, New York. The school population is roughly 60% Hispanic 30% African American and 10% other, the majority coming from poor families. There are some great teachers at our school, but the problem comes from the administration.</p>
<p>We are infamous for our staff-turnovers. I'd say more than half of the teachers get fired each year. In one year, we went through 5 chemistry teachers. Additionally, there have been textbook shortages(still are, in my AP Economics class), that have been chronichled in some newspapers.</p>
<p>The most frustrating part though, is that we are also a middle school(it's a secondary school). So we have about 100 7th and 8th graders along with us seniors. I remember when I first came to the school there was 400 people, now there is near 700.</p>
<p>There are a few good points. We're not as bad as most schools, and there are AP classes, along with good extracirriculars. We send a few kids to good schools(one friend of mine went to Cornell, another to Wheaton). I'm still glad that i'm leaving this year though.</p>
<p>I went to a really crummy school for middle school. It had three classrooms, was K-12, and had 80 kids in it. No honors, APs, or physics courses offered. The math track went up to Algebra II (people who wanted to take trig had to leave campus every day and take it at the university across the road). The principal, the secondary school math and science teacher, and the director of the handbell choir were the same person, and didn't know the difference between a "force" and a "net force." The one year we actually had seniors at the school, he was labeled "valedictorian" because he was the only senior in his class.</p>
<p>Everyone self-studied for everything. Since it was a Montessori school, the teachers in grades 7-12 didn't even make a pretense of teaching -- they simply sat at their desks and let us do our work. Our entire semester's worth of work for science consisted of writing two-page reports on six topics, then taking an all-day essay exam (the semester grade was based entirely on the exam, which was based on what you wrote in your reports). You were forced to retake exams if the score was below a 75, and prohibited from doing so if the score was above a 90.</p>
<p>I took French I there in seventh grade. When I retook it in high school, I discovered that what I'd learned in seventh grade comprised roughly one-eighth of what I learned at my new school, and my prior knowledge was exhausted a month after school began.</p>
<p>And to think, I was paying for this school.</p>
<p>my school has grand total of 800 kids and 4 APs. this years graduating class had 256 members when they were freshman, now they are down to 189. I here about this a lot because my sister wants some of the kids to come back to improve her class ranking.</p>
<p>my class has 219, and I am a freshman, so by the time i graduate we will probably be down to 150ish kids.</p>
<p>when I was a lowly eight grader we went through 6 band teachers in two months because no one could handle us.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For all you CCers who don't go to Exeter, Choate, large competitive public schools or some crazyyy Waldorf school- post your feelings!
[/quote]
Very few CCers go to those places. I currently go to a mediocre public school in Tennessee with 1700 kids and less than 10 APs. More than 500 are in my class.</p>
<p>My school is nearing 1000 students with a distribution like:</p>
<p>7th grade: 250
8th grade:200
9th grade:200
10th grade 150
11th grade 100 or less
12th grade:100 or less</p>
<p>We have 10 AP's this year and will have over 15 next year. I think my school is somewhat competitive with another school of choice in our county, but we're pretty laid back. </p>
<p>I was kind of mad that AP Bio wasn't offered this year because not enough students were interested. Overall, the course offerings are diverse, but only in the core subjects. In electives it's basically drama/art/business.</p>
<p>(I don't think that how many APs your school has = how competitive it is, for example, the best private school in my area has zero, while a lot of bad schools in my area have about 25)</p>
<p>I go to a 2000-student public high school in New Mexcio, and we're classified as a 'failing school' under No Child Left Behind. We get tested, therefore, like once every two months and we have had a different principal every year for the past six years. Sometimes I get frustruated that my parents refuse to send me to a private school, even though we can afford it, but I think maybe going to schools like the ones people are talking about on this thread make us more socially-conscious people.</p>
<p>dude i used to live in upstate ny
but then i moved to cali so i go to a crazyass private school</p>
<p>but anyways, in middle school, i was at a public school out here and literally, i had a substitute teacher for every one of my classes because they didn't have a teacher to fill the spot.
ew.</p>
<p>i dunno, my high school's pretty competitive but it's laid-back too. you don't have to feel the pressure if you don't want to, basically. i love it. it's falling apart though, and the new school which they're starting construction on this year is butt ugly, imho. that's my only peeve. but i'll be out of here before they're done with the school anyway, so whatevs.</p>
<p>2500 kids, MA</p>
<p>AP Courses that i can remember offered in alphabetical order (20 total):
Art History
Biology
Calculus AB
Calculus BC
Chemistry
Chinese
Computer Science AB
English Literature
European History
French Language
French Literature
Italian
Latin: Virgil
Latin: the other one(i don't know what it is)
Macroeconomics
Physics C (both)
Psychology
Spanish Language
Statistics
US History</p>
<p>on the other hand, we do live in an affluent community, so the school is much much better than most ones out there.</p>
<p>Non-competitive public school in Hawaii (which in my opinion hurts a lot, because mainland transfers say the curriculum is weak and I wouldn't doubt it). Barely a 1000 kids, with my graduating class this year having only about 170. With each grade down having a few dozen more. As teachers go they are very fun loving and definitely want the best for the kids yet they are not tough enough on the general population of students to help push them towards working hard. However there isn't really a problem with teachers leaving or being fired.</p>
<p>We do have decent funding when it comes to equipment and book, as well as teachers that teach AP classes. AP Calc AB, Chemistry (will not continue next year due to low enrollment), Psychics (the students do it as an extra period, an hour before schools 3 times a week; also being discontinued due to low enrollment), English Language and Lit, US History, Environmental Science, and Psychology. Its not that bad but it could be much better. The underclassmen seem afraid to challenge themselves with AP classes thus they only sign up for lower level Jr/Sr level science. </p>
<p>Are school however has gotten a very negative audit (the first for the school under some new ruling) mostly aimed at the athletic department, but with holes in the academic departments as well which may jeopardize funding priorities. </p>
<p>Our school cares about the students but doesn't push hard enough.</p>