<p>I go to a large, public, rural school in the south. People think we're good because of our test scores, but we actually suck. We offer extremely little in terms of course offerings and extracurricular activities. There is probably a good bit of grade inflation here. We have smart kids, but most of them don't get to realize their potential. Because of grade inflation, a 97 in one course makes it hard to shoot for valedictorian, etc...</p>
<p>What's your school like?</p>
<p>I go to a small, private school in the south. It’s located in the city, but most of the kids come from a good distance to attend. Several of ours kids live in North Carolina. (The school is in SC.) A lot of our kids come from rural areas. Some come from a country club neighborhood. And some are from the city, like me. It’s a pretty wide mix and we have a wide variety of accents as well. (From deep southern twang to yankee-talk)</p>
<p>We’ve only got 150 kids in the high school, but we’re considered to be a really good school. We boast the highest SAT’s in the county with a 100% take. We have 100% college placement. We offer 16 AP’s which is the same as or more than any of the local 9 public schools. It’s actually pretty difficult to make Honor Roll at all, let alone High Honor Roll (All A’s). We’re a pretty broad group of kids as we have the same amount of Varsity sports teams as local schools (no football though), we have a strong music program, a strong art program, and a decent theater program.</p>
<p>All-in-all, I go to a pretty decent school.</p>
<p>Oh! And you can leave stuff lying around and announce to the whole school that you lost your $400 iPod and actually have someone say “Oh. I saw it and I put it on the table in the hall.” Stuff just doesn’t get stolen. It’s nice. =) We don’t even have locks on our lockers.</p>
<p>I attend a public school with around 2000 kids. The general consensus is that we’re the best public school in the county. However, it is a pretty depressing statement when you consider that less than 30% of each graduating class of our school continues to go on to college and that our average SAT score is below the national average. Let’s just say that when I had a 194 on my PSAT freshman year, that I had the third highest score in the entire school.</p>
<p>We offer very limited course selection, offering only 6 APs (Calculus AB, Chemistry, Biology, Studio Art, AP English, AP European History), and I am generally disappointed with my school after going on CC. Also, seniors at my school think that a 4.0 will get them into Harvard. </p>
<p>Yeah, we suck.</p>
<p>I go to a huge public school in the south with ~2000 students. Everyone in the greater Memphis area pretty much hates us lol. We’re an IB school with only about 5 AP classes (which sucks for students like me). Our football team was I think a game away from going to state, our theater and music (me!) program kicks ass as well as our art program. Our guidance counselors suck though. ugh. ACT is stressed more than the SAT since every junior in our state is required to take the ACT in March, although now they’re starting to require some juniors to take the PSAT.</p>
<p>Bank robberies, drug busts, etc are the norm (around) here, sadly. Fights and suspensions (around 100 a week) happen basically every single day. Uhh let’s see… most of our teachers can’t teach, at all. Same thing with asianese, the seniors at my school think that a 4.0 will get them into Harvard; the juniors think that a 3.9/4.0 with no ECs will get them into Yale and Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>I heard we’re about to go on trimester or block scheduling. Great.</p>
<p>^Wow. I feel sorry for you. 100 a week? WTH. Also forgot to mention that with my high school being “the best in the county”, no school in the county has managed to produce a NMSF in the last 3 years. </p>
<p>Btw, we’re on block scheduling right now. I personally hate it because it doesn’t allow me to take as many AP classes. For us, AP classes take up the whole year, so basically you can take 8 regular classes or 4 AP classes.</p>
<p>I go to a small private school in NYC and is Catholic. There’s alumni everywhere in the country literally. Its not very diverse. The student body is very materialistic, divided, and very clique-ey. There’s many courses, but religion is a must take course. When it comes to sports the school is very competitive. My schools loves your money, and spends it on who knows what. Who throws a million dollars on technology that most teachers can barely use. Our dress code is strict, but during May its more lenient. My school is very stereotypical, its like going to a teen flick everyday.</p>
<p>very competitive
25% of the people get 800 math on sat1</p>
<p>average sat score is around 2000
450 students</p>
<p>last year 50 students got into berkeley/ucla/ucsd</p>
<p>just now 7 people got accepted early into stanford and a bunch more into ivies</p>
<p>we have no ranking but the “valedictorian” is just a genius in every aspect</p>
<p>Just wondering, but how much at a disadvantage are Caliadvitam and I who attend mediocre/subpar high schools compared to people like Firebat who attends a competitive high school?</p>
<p>@asianese: yea, 100 a week. On a good week lol. After living in Memphis for so long, you get used to it.</p>
<p>We had I think 4 national merit’s at our school. All IB students.</p>
<p>But yea, every other school in Memphis is on block scheduling or trimester. Personally, I’d rather do anything else but 7 classes a day. </p>
<p>And I hate the fact that our school starts so damn early… 6:47 sucks, especially for students like me who have to travel 45 minutes a day to and from school.</p>
<p>Our school sends a few students to top schools (Penn, Georgetown, USC, Emory, Vandy, Caltech, etc)</p>
<p>6:47??? My school starts at 7:45 and I can barely wake up at 7:15. I think the only time I wake up before 6:47 is when the house is on fire or two idiots crash planes somewhere in New York. </p>
<p>Out of each graduating class of ~500, 30% go to college and about 90% of that 30% go to our state university. We maybe get 1 or 2 to top colleges a year. Last year, was a good year for us. 1 to MIT and 1 to Stanford.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure we’re at an advantage since our schools are so…well, mediocre.</p>
<p>Anyways, ~70% of our school goes to college after high school. Around 85% of that 70% go to either: Tennessee State, University of Tennessee Knoxville or Chattanooga, Rhodes, Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU, UGA, Auburn, Vanderbilt, or Middle Tennessee State. Oh, not to forget University of Memphis. Any other school besides that list, that isn’t an ivy league school (some girl told me that Vanderbilt was an ivy league school a few days ago lol) is pretty much unheard of at my school. </p>
<p>Last year’s class was really good on acceptances, too. This year’s (so far)… not so much.</p>
<p>I’m hoping for the advantage based on mediocrity, seeing as how many students who attend these types of high schools are not presented with the same opportunities. For example, I am the only one in my entire school who has ever heard of programs such as TASP, RSI, USAMO, USABO, Intel STS, etc., while I’m sure student bodies at other more competitive schools are quite aware of these opportunities. Lol at Vandy being ivy.</p>
<p>^Haha, my school starts a 7:30, but it’s a pain to get into school if you get there past 7:00.</p>
<p>My school’s in New England with about 2750 kids. It’s been named one of the wealthiest towns in America (probably due to its proximity with New York City) and the school is pretty segregated, both racially and economically. You can kind of tell who people are from where they sit. There’s four main sections of seats in the Student Center for the different grade levels and from there you can tell who people are. There’s the “ghetto wall”, the “ghetto circle”, and the ESL kids. Many kids own multimillion dollar houses and are kind of sheltered from the real world. There are a lot of studious kids, but there are a lot of “partiers”. We send a lot of kids to the Ivy League a year, I think we sent 9 students to Princeton, 9 to Columbia, 3 to Harvard, 1 to Yale or something like that. Due to a lot of funding, we have a lot of classes and activities (seriously, we have bowling and sailing as a sport), but the kids in my school are so obsessed with going to an Ivy League that they don’t do what they enjoy. I think a lot of the teachers are bored since they’ve all been well educated and have had better jobs in the past.</p>
<p>Haha, this was so incredibly unorganized. </p>
<p>@asianese: I think you’re fine. Colleges look at where you’re from and what you’ve done with the resources from what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>@asianese: I’ll admit, before I joined CC I had never heard about any of those things! Except for the 2 or 3 IB kids who apply to ivy league schools at my school, no one’s ever heard of SAT subject tests either. The only summer program that anyone (and, again, by “anyone” i mean honors/ IB kids*) actually has heard of/attends is Governor’s school. And because of that, my counselor is so damn clueless… I tried to tell her I needed my transcript sent to a Vandy summer program that she hadn’t heard of and she just gave me a blank stare and talked to me as if I a. had no chance of getting in and b. had no clue what I was applying for.</p>
<p>*the IB kids have their own guidance counselor who devotes more attention to them. our guidance counselors, on the other hand, literally can’t stand us.</p>
<p>Same here. The only summer activity my classmates have heard of is of going to the mall and hanging with friends. Also, my relationship with our grade level counselor is also peculiar. I have attempted to schedule harder courses for my next year’s classes and she told me that since no one has taken these classes as a junior before, that I couldn’t, and basically that I should just calm down and enjoy high school. The advice given to me right there pretty much sums up my school’s attitude towards higher education. Well I’m not sure if I can blame her, seeing as how she’s the ONLY counselor for over 500 students.</p>
<p>Yea, mine is the only guidance counselor for 500 students as well. She gave me a study hall this year and my friends were already complaining about how mad she was about schedule changes (thanks to IB, ~200/500 in our class had screwed up schedules) so I didn’t want to bother her until the end of the semester.
Well, the semesters over and I’m almost scared to ask her if I can take AP Macro next semester since it took her 3 months to change the 200 screwed up schedules.</p>
<p>Boy, I love my school.</p>
<p>I love our schools, too! Btw just wondering, but what kind of colleges are you aiming for Caliadvitam?</p>
<p>USC, UCLA, Berkeley, Duke, Emory, Vandy and a few safeties.
I have an on and off relationship with Stanford currently 
what about you?</p>
<p>Hopefully MIT or Caltech. Realistically, community college. Just kidding, probably my state u. However, after reading more about Stanford, I have taken interest in it. Plus, my parents would be happy that I wouldn’t be traveling across the country to MIT or some place.</p>
<p>What’s your state school?
And my mom really wants me to go to vanderbilt since it’s only a two hour drive. She doesnt want me to go to California because “it’s too far”. Luckily my dad doesn’t care.
Which is another reason why I hate my school: they brainwash us into believing that Vanderbilt is the be all end all, and that if we don’t get into Vanderbilt our next best fit is our state school.
Plus, MIT hates our school lol. At least this year. 2 seniors have been deferred.</p>