<p>Lol specialized high schools…lots of my friends attend Bronx Science and that school is filled with pot heads and lazy kids who test well but don’t work hard at all.</p>
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<p>As someone who attended an LAC where pot was the vice of choice over alcohol, I’ve encountered many “potheads” who graduated with honors and have gone on to highly successful grad school/professional careers. </p>
<p>As for the lazy kids, there’s always a few of us around…though some of us may be partially putting on an act to show we’re not being phased by the cutthroat competitive environment despite being barely able to keep out heads above academic water. </p>
<p>That…or some may actually be so advanced academically that even BxScience is easy for them and they may end up hitting the academic wall much later. One older alum friend mentioned he breezed through BxScience and undergrad at a respectable college as a full scholarship student only to find he hit the wall in academic grad school. However, he later managed to get into a topflight MBA program and breezed through that.</p>
<p>My daughter is finishing junior year at a specialized high school, one of the big three. It is indeed a different NYC school system than 10 or 20 years ago. All of the big three have a pretty big majority of Asian students–60-75 percent. All of the big three (and every other high school in NY and probably everywhere in the U.S.) have pot smokers, other drug users, drinkers and plenty of kids that do none of these things. The big three are all around 60 percent boys. Students can apply to transfer for sophomore year, but they have to apply by December of freshman year. After that, there are extremely limited options, almost all of which are not great schools, with limited seats available. So almost everyone sticks it out. You can still get a plain old Regents diploma available at every high school in NYC if you pass enough state Regents exams with a 65.</p>
<p>There are fewer and fewer zoned schools–none at all in Manhattan, and many in Queens and Brooklyn and the Bronx that are truly crappy schools. So unless you happen to have a good zoned school (surely less than half the students in the city), that option is not available and I believe not available after freshman to sophomore year. So all the SHSAT schools wind up with students who squeak through or need another year to graduate.</p>
<p>Stuyvesant’s principal “resigned” last year when a pretty serious cheating scheme was discovered last year, and I am sure it wasn’t the only cheating scheme. The resigning principal was really arrogant–he was on a panel with the other SHSAT (named for the entrance exam that is the only, repeat only criterion for admission) schools (the big 3 with 2500-5500 students, and another 5 much newer schools with fewer than 1000 students) and when asked what the best feature of his school was, he answered “The escalators.” </p>
<p>Although my daughter scored within 10 points of the score required for Stuy, she was absolutely not interested and didn’t even list it on her application form. She loves her school but she knows that there is a huge variety of students there. She and all the students at SHSAT schools muddle through with class size of 34 students in all the academic classes. Almost all of the students receive an offer to attend another school via the convoluted, byzantine NYC high school admissions process. The other school she was offered has a very interesting “theme” (not this one but many other NYC public schools have names and themes that have very little connection to the actual classes there), very safe, really committed teachers, etc., etc. but she decided she wanted to go to her school. She would have been a star at the other school and would have had a much more interesting college application there but it was her decision to make. Although yes, her application would have been more interesting graduating from the other school, complete with a much higher GPA, I have no doubt that she’s learning more where she is. And having graduated a zillion years ago from a crappy high school in a working-class suburb and struggling during freshman year of college, I think she made the right decision, even if she winds up at a school many numbers down on the USNews report.</p>
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<p>Unless you have an IEP for a local diploma attend a school that has PBAT or alternative assessments, most students who graduate from NYS public schools will minimally graduate with a regents diploma because it is the diploma. Yes, some students will graduate with various versions of the regents diploma; honors, advanced regents , advance regents with honors, advanced regents with emphasis on math, science or math and science. However, the regents diploma is the diploma that students receive at graduation.</p>
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<p>The Regents diploma is the default one now for most as opposed to a higher standard diploma of 10-20+ years ago. </p>
<p>Moreover, from what I’ve heard from several former HS teachers and friends who teach in the NY public schools, regents standards/curricula has been watered down even compared to when I attended in the early-mid '90s. </p>
<p>A factor in why many HS graduates with NYC Regents diplomas are finding themselves taking remedial courses after public community/4-year colleges placement tests revealed many deficiencies in basic academic skills they should have learned in middle/high school. </p>
<p>Many students taking remedial courses at the local NYC area community colleges/public colleges 10-20 years ago tended to be academically marginal non-regents diploma graduates or those who struggled to get their GED.</p>
<p>Yes, imho, the Regents tests have been watered down. I think that the entire situation is terrible. We have made it difficult to combine vocational training, and have the fiction that all children will get Regents diplomas.</p>
<p>there are changes being made to the regents; this year no teacher will grade regents exams for students at their own school. the regents are scored at grading centers to eliminate scrubbing of the regents. Next year, there will be changes to the english and math regents to align the exam with the common core standards.</p>
<p>My point about plain, ordinary Regents diplomas is that students at all the specialized high schools (except I think Brooklyn Latin which has a full-fledged international baccalaureate program) get them too. Not every Stuyvesant student qualifies for an Advanced Regents diploma, nor do they all transfer if they are not doing well. If they don’t apply to transfer by the end of the year when they are freshmen, it’s difficult for them to transfer at all, except to so-called transfer schools, not a very distinguished group of schools. Most students do not have zoned schools, and even if they do have them and they are decent, they are subject to the same restrictions–transfer at the beginning of sophomore year or to a so-called transfer school or stay where you are. Sybbie, am I correct?</p>
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<p>It’s not all about the generic type of NYS HS diplomas, but also the reputation of the specific high school one graduates from. I know of several NYC area companies…especially those run by alums of SHS which would be willing to give an extra tip for those who are SHS graduates…even those without advanced Regents diplomas. </p>
<p>Same with college adcoms…and regarding this…I speak from firsthand experience as someone who did benefit. :)</p>
<p>I am not even a SHS grad, but I would give any SHS or BronxScience a leg up on a job. These are credentials which can not be bought and which do not admit based on affirmative action. The advance Regents – I don’t see it as a big deal. Many of the very good suburban schools do not even deal with it.</p>
<p>Even when I went to specialized high school (long before cobrat was a twinkle in his parents eye and they first admitted girls into the specialized high schools) the default diploma was a regents diploma. </p>
<p>The Stuyvesant/Bronx Science/Bklyn tech diploma was an advanced regents diploma. I believe that this is still the case; that there is a two-tier diploma system. Kids who did not meet the requirements for the Stuyvesant/Bronx Science/Bklyn tech diploma , still end up meeting the requirements for a regents diploma.</p>
<p>below is the link to the graduation requirements ar stuyvesant:</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“Stuyvesant High School”>http://www.stuy.edu/]www.stuy.edu[/url</a>]</p>
<p>Stuyvesant 'requires" Bio/chem/Physics/ and a year of elective science. If a Stuyvesant student does not complete the sequence, as long as they obtain 6 science credits which at least one regents based life science and one regents based physical science, they will have met the requirements for a regents diploma. </p>
<p>Any student at Stuyvesant who meets the city/state requirements for a diploma will receive a diploma from Stuyvesant. The student will still graduate, be a Stuyvesant high school graduate receive a NYS regents based diploma and will be discharged from Stuyvesant high school as receiving a regents diploma (yes cobrat having actually worked at Stuyvesant, I know this to be true)</p>
<p>It is not unusual for a Stuyvesant kid t have already completed either living environment or earth science in middle school (leaving one physical or life science to complete the graduation requirement).</p>
<p>Regarding transfers:</p>
<p>The easiest and the best way to obtain a transfer in high school is to go through the transfer process freshman year. </p>
<p>Students who don’t transfer through the transfer process, are not regulated to transfer schools should something happen and they decide to leave at a later date. Keep in mind that transfer schools are designed to serve students who are over aged and under credited and work with students for whom high school has been a challenge. Most students who attend transfer schools, have gotten off track and on average are missing credits.</p>
<p>There are a number of ways that students can and do transfer schools
You can get a transportation hardship transfer (if you live 1 hr 15 mins travel time through hop stop)
You can get a safety transfer (usually happens after some altercation in school. you also need a police report.
You can get a medical hardship transfer
You can receive a voluntary/involuntary transfer (which happened to the student in the middle of the Stuyvesant cheating scandal after he served his suspension).</p>
<p>When the transfer happens, you and your parent(s) go to the office of enrollment and meet with the enrollment officer who will review your report card and transcripts. They will usually place you a school similar to the one that you are attending (if there are really extenuating circumstances (most likely safety/medical) and the student was doing well at Stuyvesant and had the support of the Stuyvesant administration, they may end up being placed at Brooklyn Tech or Bronx Science) . </p>
<p>If you are leaving a screened school, you will most likely get a disposition letter to attend another screened school, where you will meet with the principal and the GC who will make the decision as to whether or not to take you on their roster. If you attend an unscreened/ed opt school, you will get a disposition letter to another unscreened/ ed-opt school where the administration must place you on the roster. </p>
<p>A student who transfers out of a specialized high school will most likely get a disposition letter to a screened program and will most likely attend the screened school/program that they are given a disposition to.</p>
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<p>This is why the school profile is important, because it tells the story of the school and the school environment. A student with an advanced regents with honors diploma from Stuyvesant and a student with an advanced regents diploma brooklyn podunk high school has still met the same state requirements to get that diploma. While Stuyvesant may have more of a track record with college admins, if 2 similar students with GPA/SAT/regents scores, one coming from Stuyvesant and one coming from Bklyn Podunk, the tip would go to bklyn podunk because that student was able to do more (or at least achieve the same) with less resources.</p>
<p>My D and a number of her friends turned down Stuyvesant to stay at their 6-12 magnet school where they all graduated with advanced regents with honors diplomas . It did not hurt their prospects at all considering that they were accepted to Stanford, Yale, Amherst, Williams, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, Penn, Chicago, Princeton, etc.</p>
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<p>With the exception of the CUNY, SUNY, and some NYS based colleges, most adcoms don’t pay much, if any attention to regents scores from what I’ve heard from those at my and other colleges. </p>
<p>Moreover, while some colleges will give that tip you’ve described, I’ve also found the opposite to be true from my and others recounted experiences. </p>
<p>Many SHS alums I’ve known were admitted to many colleges with far lower than normal GPA for a given OOS state or private colleges than counterparts from average high schools even with the same given NYS diploma. I myself had a HS GPA which fell into the bottom 25% of my LAC’s admitted pool. </p>
<p>Several adcoms have mentioned that they preferred grads from SHS or other academically comparable public/private HSs because they are well-prepared for college-level work and aren’t as likely to struggle/flunk out because they are academically underprepared or unfamiliar with the level of workloads respectable/elite colleges will expect. </p>
<p>For instance, while one could also get an advanced regents diploma from my old zoned HS, I’ve known of many employers who may be skeptical of even its advanced regents diploma graduates due to past experiences having them as employees and the abysmal graduation rate*. Incidentally, that rate combined with security/other issues were factors in why said HS ended up being closed down a few years ago.</p>
<p>It’s similar to the AP class issues. An AP class from one given HS district, HS, or even individual teacher isn’t necessarily going to be the same as one in another. </p>
<p>I know of many HS boasting having more AP classes/students. However, it doesn’t mean much when most students at such HS who are AP students end up scoring 3 or lower…especially considering it was commonplace for many non-AP students at HS like mine to self-study for several weeks and score 4-5s without struggling. </p>
<p>And if my college classmate’s experience with APUSH at a private school is any indication…even taking APUSH course a score of 5 is no guarantee of mastery to the level of an equivalent USH course at respectable/elite colleges. I ended up having to do several crash tutoring sessions with him because he had so many inexplicable knowledge gaps which were seriously impacting him in advanced courses in a related major. </p>
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<li>Despite Murray Bergtram HS being in the recent news as a NYC HS with major rowdiness/violence issues, their recent graduation rate is nearly double that of my zoned HS within the last two years before its closing.</li>
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<p>Considering your experience with the college admissions process is~ 20 years ago, and mine is approximately 20 days ago, and I promise you that I have been through the college process with more students and spoken and continue to speak with more adcoms than you and your anecdotal acquaintances and have dealt with more students from a larger variety of settings, you will understand if I take what you say with a box of salt.</p>
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<p>I would be circumspect about working for anyone who thinks that people peak in high school and the specialized high school diploma is the be all and end all regardless to anything else you have done in your post secondary life </p>
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<p>Actually, they do especially if there is a disconnect in the classroom grade and the test score (remember teacher grading varies from school to school and often from teacher to teacher in the same subject area. However every student in the state requiring a regents for graduation takes the same exam.</p>
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<p>It isn’t about peaking in HS. Instead, an SHS diploma or one from HSs with comparable academic rigor/workload to some employers is a signaling device indicating an added reasonable likelihood its holder has some intelligence, work ethic, and enough independent problem solving ability to not need as much handholding. </p>
<p>In short, it’s a plus. </p>
<p>On the flipside, having a diploma from my former zoned HS back when it existed had a negative signaling effect, especially with NYC area employers who had many negative experiences with them as employees for summer jobs or post-HS graduation. Some of them may also wonder whether the given student has issues with academics, ability to follow through on given tasks(due to high dropout rate), and possible issues with criminality(HS had high crime rate ranging from violent knifings to drug dealing on school grounds).</p>
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<p>Cobrat, in the grown-up world, no one pays attention to where someone went to high school. It’s OVER. It’s been over for 15 years or so for you. Move ON. You are obsessed with your high school experience. Enough already.</p>
<p>With the exception of interviewing at Stuyvesant, I have never, ever had any employer comment on where I went to high school inside or outside of the DOE (I guess my specialized HS, which was not Stuyvesant was good enough. Stuyvesant still hired me even after I told them my D was accepted there and did not to attend and I supported her decision. However, most of the people employed at Stuyvesant did not attend any specialized high school ). Outside of the AP Guidance that hired me, I don’t think any one I worked with knew or cared where I went to school. Imagine me sitting her talking to my students and saying “when I went to specialized high school.” Pleeze, they would think I was crazy or at least condescending (neither would be thing).</p>
<p>Hey! PG, do not beat that poor Cobrat to death. I still love the name recognition of my middle school. That is where the real action is. Regarding Stuy, I am still trying to reconcile the facts that both Cobrat and Mini went there. A remake of the odd couple? But then, I probably have a hard time understanding how a STEM school directs its students to bastions of Liberal Arts a la Williams (Whitman on the East) or Oberlin! :)</p>
<p>PS Special thanks to Sybbie for shedding lights on the NY system. It makes Texas’ organization look crystal clear.</p>
<p>At least mini doesn’t go on and on about it, though.</p>
<p>“Lol specialized high schools…lots of my friends attend Bronx Science and that school is filled with pot heads and lazy kids who test well but don’t work hard at all.”</p>
<p>Lazy Bronx Science grad (1980) who didn’t start smoking pot until college. My local zoned HS was George Washington which was the opposite of Ivory soap (99 44/100 Dominican). Had I attempted to go there my chances of surviving 4 periods let alone 4 years were slim. I had teachers who wouldn’t count the Regents results in our grades because it was the easiest exam we took all year. Always thought the Big 3 were not superior to the average HS just superior to the average NYC HS which was horrendous.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl,</p>
<p>What I have brought up does have bearing on the topic as it is about why a large proportion of NYC HS graduates end up in remedial courses despite graduating with a Regents diploma accompanied by decent/high grades in classes/Regents exams. </p>
<p>Incidentally, you’re reminding me of someone who tried to abandon his Nerdy roots in childhood/HS by going to the extreme of joining a jock oriented-frat at a Big 10 and making many disparaging remarks about Nerds and their passions*, and joins the sales staff so he can be with a group dominated by ex-frat social butterflies. </p>
<p>Is there a way we can encourage you to embrace your inner nerd and thus, achieve some sort of acceptance so you don’t go off on your anti-academic/intellectual rants against nerds, academics, etc. 
:D</p>
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<li>Defined as those who are passionate and high achieving in academics whether it’s English literature to playing around with DSPs in an electrical engineering lab.<br></li>
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<p>While the SHSs have a STEM emphasis, we also have strong humanities/social science departments as well. </p>
<p>Moreover, plenty of Hunter College HS and presumably…other HS emphasizing humanities/social sciences have graduates go off to STEM oriented techie schools like MIT, Caltech, CMU, Harvey Mudd, etc. :D</p>