Should I switch to another high school?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

Currently I go to the #865 in the nation, but recently as I’ve matured and increased my aspirations I’ve felt uncomfortable here. They force kids to take vocational courses at an adjacent “technical college” for half the day, which limits my academics. The only way you can get out of this is by taking dual enrollment classes, but I never knew this and it is too late to apply. This would all be well and good as I would not mind taking DE only next year. However the local CC is about 30 minutes away and I’m not allowed to drive so far, AND my high school does not have a bus to it. So I can switch to the #24 school in the country, but it’s 25 minutes away and I think has ~1000 students.

So I have these options

-Stay at my high school and hack it with additional online classes and DE
-Switch at the end of this semester
-Complete this year and switch senior year

I’m really quite the recluse and that’s the reason I chose my school. I’m willing to switch to this much better school in order to increase my chances of getting into Northwestern or Cornell though. My current school also only offers 6 AP courses, and has a low passing rate in comparison. I’ll most likely end up in the top 5% of my class and I’ve started a few clubs and function as president. While this other school is much more difficult.

So the questions are : what would you do in my shoes? addiitonally, would going to a great school compensate for the loss of all my titles and class rank? Does taking technical coures affect my my chances greatly for schools of high calibre?

I hope this is in the corect forum, thanks for reading this

2

I go to a terrible high school (314th out of 328th in NJ), and have attended two others, so I know a thing or two about bad schools & transferring. Here’s some things to keep in mind:

-Will your grades suffer/will you be left behind?
-Will your class rank have a dramatically go down?
-Will you be able to motivate yourself to do well online?

If you do transfer, I’d recommend waiting until senior year. Junior year is the most difficult year, and transferring in the middle of the year is HARD (I’ve done it). Good luck!

3

Probably have already decided, but rank will be the most important thing to consider here.

4

I’m having trouble understanding why you picked a vocational high school if you were hoping to go to a highly selective college. I would transfer to a more suitable school. There’s no guarantee that any high school will get you into a better college, but this school seems unsuited to your needs. I’m not sure why you think that 25 minutes to school is excessive. It’s a lot less than many of the kids at our school have to deal with. Make use of the bus time.

Also, you all should stop obsessing about ranking numbers of high schools.

5

1° What classes are you taking right now? (subjects, level)
2° If you stay at your current school, what classes would you be taking next year?
3° Would online high school be available and free?
4° Have you taken the PSAT? What’s your score?

6

@mathyone not rank of high school, but how his class rank will change.