<p>lol i find it weird that something compelled you to join CC just to post that comment. how do you infer that i'm a stuy reject? it really isn't too difficult to gain a spot in that school, which i had. if i decided to attend it would take over an hour to get to...i guess i wouldn't mind it now but back then it felt a little overwhelming for a 14 year old. the comments i made weren't assumptions. about half my friends attended/attend stuy. they can attest to whatever i've posted because a lot of what i said came from them. don't get me wrong, stuy is a great school that offers lots of opportunities. i just wouldn't like the general environment instilled in the school and the sometimes hostile attitude with students concerning grades.</p>
<p>Dude Stuy sucks. Bronx Science is so much better. The school with 7 nobel laureates which btw is the highest for any secondary school in the world.</p>
<p>I think its fair to say that most of you haven't set foot in stuy. yes stuy is competitive. yes, if you're the type that works hard you will work your ass off more than you can imagine. If you're a slacker, no one's stopping you from doing that either. it has not been cutthroat in my experience at all -- quite the opposite - its more common for people to look out for each other than to try to screw someone over. more often than not i've been inspired by the geniuses who do graduate level computer graphics projects, who manage to write 200 pages for their english final projects, who are star athletes and role models to their teammates, etc. you get the idea. </p>
<p>It's a shame that so many more talented and interesting people could've gone to stuy -- could've thrived and made it a better place, but were turned off by false or exaggerated stereotypes.</p>
<p>60% of my friends go to stuy, and heres the deal. Stuy is a great school, but has many of the problems most of the other NYC schools have. Sure the facilities may be much nicer than most other nyc schools but in the long run that really doesnt matter. Most of the kids who go to stuy arent any sort of genuis, some of them aren't even considered "smart." I tutor many kids from stuy in chem/ history, and i have had better test scores/ gpa from elementary to junior high. No one should automatically associate stuy with super smart or genius. Many of the teachers suck, and can only teach because they have seniority. The workload varies, one of my friends has a ****load of free time, while the other is struggling to get his drafting or cpu sci hw done. Alot of the kids are just really good in one area, which is how they got in ( the test is designed so that someone who is spectacular in one area bt is lacking in another can get in rather than balanced in borth). However, stuy is still a great hs which offers alot of classes. It is not for everyone however, and there are much better alternatives for other gifted students.</p>
<p>very true about the stuy exam..its extremely flawed. but if i did have to choose a school to attend in the city, it would probably be stuy. hunter is awesome but i don't think i'd like being with the same 200 kids since the 7th grade.</p>
<p>i applied there but then i moved, sooooo as a result, i didn't even get the result letter. haha. but i think i'll be better off in a normal public school like the one i'm attending right now b/c stuy has too much competition. ppl often say that once u get into stuy, ur halfway into an ivy...</p>
<p>^^not true. the school you go to has nothing to do with college admissions. people who go to stuy are obviously smart enough to realize their potential and there are about 200 applicants to cornell alone every year. but people falsey assume that getting into a specialized high school means automatic admission into selective colleges. i say this all the time but its worth mentioning again; taking full advantage of all the opportunities handed to you elsewhere and doing well that is on par with competitive school standards will make you as equally qualified as the next applicant. i know plenty of people who went to these types of schools but just because they're a smart bunch who do their homework...what makes them standout? its work the same with every school. bottom line, stuy won't increase your chances of getting into college!</p>
<p>^ sometimes it's true sometimes it's not. it depends on the student. going into stuy doesn't guarantee u a seat at harvard but ur getting a better education than say at a high school in flushing. but then again, ppl who go to school in flushing also has the ability to go to an elite college. i know this girl (not personally) who did. as long as you try hard enough, u can get into the college of dreams just about anywhere. </p>
<p>btw, the last thing i said about stuy in my last post was taken from random asian parents (as well as mine). NOT from me.</p>
<p>that's just it though. you're not getting a better education. the school i came from offers just as many AP classes as stuy does, its up to the students to take upon the challenge of that kind of work. you have to remember that stuy is still a public nyc high school, with the same standards as all the rest. the teachers there aren't even better; like another poster mentioned, some get seniority and others are randomely assigned stuy. and that's another thing i'm no racist, in fact i have many asian friends, but i don't think i'd like going to a school where 60% of the student body was asian. it gets annoying especially when asians are known to stick with their own kind and constantly speak their respective languages.</p>
<p>I go to Stuy, roughly 1/4 of us get into an ivy leauge</p>
<p>biggyboy- i meant compared to SOME high schools, NOT ALLLLL. </p>
<p>oh and btw, i'm chinese, i go to a high school where koreans make up probably half of of the school. tho there are quite a few chinese ppl, but i, for one, do not speak constantly in my respective language and i certainly do not stick with my own kind. some do but not all.</p>
<p>i'm not saying everyone is a genius. that would be difficult in a school where the graduating class is 700-800 people. but you will be around some very smart and motivated people trust me. If you want to feel complacent in being the smartest kid in the room in most of your classes, go to another school. it's up to you to work hard -- its a sink or swim environment in that respect -- and most people do. Your school can offer the same exact courses -- it doesn't matter. The people make up the school. that's what stuy is all about.</p>
<p>I go to Hunter and have a bunch of friends at Stuy, so I think that I can describe both schools moderately accurately.</p>
<p>Basically, the differences between the two are:
-Hunter is smaller, period. A smaller building, smaller class sizes, etc. This could work for or against you, depending on what type of environment you want.
-Stuy, although I'm sure has decent English, history, art, etc programs, is known as a math and science school for a reason. It does focus more on those subjects, and the kids seem to be more interested in those subjects. Hunter, on the other hand, has some students who are more math or science oriented, but more of the student body is more into writing and art and music. The theater program here, while I'm not a theater person myself, is very strong, as is the participation in art and writing competitions such as Scholastic.
-Location. Stuy is, as someone said, pretty close to the former WTC. Hunter is upper east side, 94th and Park. This means that the opportunities and neighborhoods are obviously different, and the schools take this into account (ie - at Hunter, for the 3 mandatory years of art class, you have a "museum project" each year where you have to visit either the Met or MoMA).
-Racial diversity itself isn't too different (both schools are mostly Asian and white), but Stuy is 9th-12th grade, while Hunter is 7th-12th and there's also an elementary school for K-6th, and most students from the elementary school go to the high school. There are about 200 students in each grade here, and about 50 of them are from the elementary school. That means that approximately 1/4 of the school, by graduation, will have known each other since they were about 4. For some people, the fact that you will learn to be with the same people for at least 6 years is a turnoff, and I've known a couple of kids to leave for just this reason. At Stuy, with the fewer number of years and the larger student body, it's more possible to become a statistic instead of a personality with your peers and teachers, and it's easier to blend in.</p>
<p>Wow that was longer than I expected.</p>
<p>As is true with any school of any level, no one school can ever be right for every person. I'm just trying to lay out some differences to consider.</p>
<p>that sounds about right. small classes are definitely something i would've liked to try - at prom this year i realized i don't know a lot of people even after 4 years.</p>
<p>Also, Hunter and Stuy students have a relationship of bickering, especially about number and % of students sent to Ivies and other top schools.</p>
<p>For the record, although Hunter has a higher % (1/3, vs 1/4 of Stuy) of kids sent to Ivies, the sheer number of more kids at Stuy means that more kids actually go.</p>
<p>has hunter increased in size recently? stuy's been getting between 800 and 900 kids for the past couple of years =. compare that to my class of about 700 and the recent average size of around 750</p>
<p>stuy is only allowed to accept up to 800 kids per year, and many people do not stay for all 4 years. 750 sounds about right for a lot of the senior classes. i agree with someone that the location is important too. the high school i come from is in a very nice part of new york (great neighborhood), although it is primarily a zoned school. i actually walked to school like many others i knew, so that was very convenient. when you're that young, the traveling can be really annoying and ive been told that many people wanted to transfer out of stuy right after freshman year, this reason being part of it. hunter definitely wins the vote of location as it is nestled in probably the priciest neighborhood of the city (upper east side) and it is also a lot easier to get to for most people. the only thing is the building is a tad old (lack of windows even) and stuy moved into a new building in the early-mid 90's and that is made clear when you first walk in. these may be trivial things to consider, but it honestly does shift one's attitude for the overall environment of each school. i know too many kids who've wanted to gain admission to stuy since they were like 12 (sometimes after being rejected from hunter) but in the end, they werent satisfied with their choices of attending such a competitive school that is no where near where the average student even resides.</p>
<p>i think that the overall student body of each school is very talented, but hunter kids are probably more well rounded (you have to perform excellent on verbal/writing/math on their exam and not just amazing at math as done with stuy). i personally would not want to attend a school clogged with math nerds as i, though i do not hate math, am more of a humanities guy. </p>
<p>percentage wise, hunter does yield a higher rate of ivy matriculants but the class size is a lot smaller so the difference is insignificant. the great thing about attending those schools with college admissions is name recognition. a 3.0 GPA at hunter will even get you into a school like NYU (provided that you're on par with the average SAT score at hunter which is, no joke, around a 1500). grade inflation is certainly not common at either school and people with 80's at stuy even get into schools like michigan and carnegie mellon.</p>
<p>in the end though, it really depends on what you make out of your high school years. going to a zoned school rather than one by exam-admission can sometimes benefit the student. but high school years are a pivotal time in shaping an adolescents and sometimes the different environments can have effects that you don't even think of prior to matriculating.</p>
<p>Heh, I had never even heard of Hunter (the high school part.. I knew it was a college..) until my first year in Stuy, when I heard classmates talking about it.</p>
<p>tachobg - It has, but not significantly. There are about 20-25 more students in each incoming grade now than there were a few years ago.</p>
<p>I don't know, I can't really have pity on people who go "Oh, it's 45 minutes away! I don't want to get up THAT early!", because I live 2 hours from Hunter and gladly wake up between the hours of 4 and 5 for it. But that's just me :]</p>
<p>My cousin went to Stuy but ended up transferring out after her second year.</p>
<p>The commute was really hard for her, and after Sept 11th and being at school there she just got sort of wooked out and realized that being where she was from in Brooklyn just didn't mesh well with the school's atmosphere. So wow teen cliche that is pretty dedicated.</p>