What type/kind of school is ideal for you (What can I say...)?

Pre-College Topics High School Life
1

<p>So as I finished my Assassin's Creed and became bored...</p>

<p>(from the question)
HS: I'm fairly content with what I have right now, it's decently competitive with a big...gap (for the lack of a better word, since I literally have the vocabulary of a 5th grader) in terms of intelligence; from epic druggies on meth/PCP to pseudo-Einsteins. It's a big school, a bit diverse, I guess. Lots of opportunities I guess. I don't really have an "ideal" image of HS currently. Maybe because I need to sleep; I might edit this later.</p>

<p>College: Haven't thought about it, really. I never really dreamed of going to college before I came here, as a "oh, that, maybe...". I'd be content at any college, and don't really care if I go to a community college, unlike the majority of the people on here. I'm guessing I'll end up at some local community college near me or a state school. As long as it's social, diverse, fun (in many senses of the word), and somewhat learning-able, with great people, I'm fine.</p>

<p>...Obviously I don't have great images of an "ideal" school, and definitely did not include any specifics about races, religions, and etc. I'm actually more interested to know others' opinions (this'll be a thread I'll actually read). You're free to rant on about details, images, atmospheres.</p>

<p>On a side (irrelevant) note: I just got an e-mail from my English teacher saying I have "detention" in two days for writing down John Lennon as "the famous English writer of the Victorian era who was the 2nd child of 8 and wrote such works as Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities and Britney Spears for "the famous American writer who wrote A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell **Tolls as well as a lot of short-stories and later committed suicide". I have to go into her room at lunch and research about those two authors among others the whole time, just because I wrote down some "bad" answers although others got it wrong as well. Hogwash.</p>

<p>I know you don't care. I had to say it anyways since it was so ridiculous and I'd be waste 30 minutes of my life...;)</p>

2

<p>You guys still get detention in high school?</p>

<p>Characteristics of my ideal school:
(a) Classmates are not dumb as bricks. Senior-level physics majors will not assume you can take the dot product of two matrices because “matrices and vectors are the same thing.” Classmates seek to understand the material rather than memorizing formulas for the next test. (No offense, but it’s pretty useless working with people when all they can give you is the answer.) Classmates are people I can ask for help if I’m confused about a theoretical concept. I am not the smartest person in the class.</p>

<p>(b) Professors make their lectures interesting and easy to follow. They are patient, understanding, and encourage questions. Class sizes are small enough that I can ask dumb questions during lecture without annoying 200 people. Professors are available to explain concepts during office hours, but don’t give out the answers to problem sets. Professors respect their students and do not talk down to them for making stupid mistakes or asking questions.</p>

<p>(c) Coursework is challenging, but not so challenging that I have no time to do all the reading and learn the material. The class proceeds at a speed that would allow me to learn the material on my own. Students are encouraged and expected to do reading before coming to class. Students should have time to study and partially internalize the material before starting on homework.</p>

<p>(d) I have at least two or three hours of free (nonstudy) time every night and preferably a free day every weekend.</p>

<p>(e) Homework is frequently assigned and promptly graded. For pure math classes homework should be interesting and not involve proving something that’s already been proven in the book or writing out all the properties of a normed vector space ten times. Teachers should assume we are smart and capable of original thought. For “mathematical methods” classes or classes that seek to teach you some skill (integration by parts, variation of parameters), problem sets should provide sufficient practice for us to internalize the skill and apply it to harder problems. Problem sets should have some easy (nontedious) problems on them so we can internalize the concepts before working on harder problems. (Problem sets that consist solely of a few “interesting” problems might just confuse the hell out of us. This happens a lot at Caltech. I took linear algebra there and still don’t know how to diagonalize a matrix because they only gave us one problem on it, and it was “interesting.” Maybe I should’ve taken prac math.)</p>

<p>(f) School is relatively large, with lots of things to do and people to meet. It is difficult for a student to form a reputation except within a small group of people. Students have a life outside the campus and do not confuse their college with the real world. People are nice.</p>

<p>This holds for both high school and college, but I think it’d be a lot harder to find a high school with these qualities.</p>

3

<p>My ideal school (though I might be biased as I already know the list of schools I will apply to next year):</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Would maintain a certain level of intellectuality among students; no direct form of competitiveness pervading the campus; learning for its own sake is the main focus and want of (almost) every student</p></li>
<li><p>Fun times. By this I do not mean the obvious “frat fun” of binge drinking and purging thereafter. I am not a fan of the bulimic drinker. I do mean, however, a fun aside of Scrabble after a not-TOO-intense study session while discussing Nietsche and Dante over a cup of coffee, maybe listening to a poetry reading at a slam of sorts. </p></li>
<li><p>Incredible English/creative writing/film department. Everyone is beyond excited to be there, to be learning and actually thinking of the world in which we live, of drawing parallels between our society and those of fiction. Ah, such a dream world, for me.</p></li>
<li><p>The arts are a main focus on campus. (They draw larger crowds than the sports games). School spirit shared through a unifying love for all things cultural. Dance, theater, art, music, literature, all these things foster increased creativity in the already-creative student body. Everyone is passionate about something: languages, or philosophy, or juggling, or an exciting combination of the three. I don’t care what it is: the weirder, the better. Just have passion, uncontrollable, undying passion, for something(s).</p></li>
<li><p>School is small (500-3000), cultivating a sense of community not to be found in a larger environment.</p></li>
<li><p>Professors are intelligent, engaging, thought-provoking and -encouraging, brilliant in their respective fields, and exceedingly receptive to outside needs. Willing to grab a cup of coffee/tea to talk about academics or life in general. Very open to anything.</p></li>
<li><p>Liberal student body, though not to the point where contrasting ideals and beliefs are unacceptable. Environmentally and socially aware. </p></li>
<li><p>Most of all, an open and accepting environment where all walks of life can gather together in a utopian-like atmosphere to discuss politics, philosophy, religion, what have you. Everyone accepted. No discrimination for mental health, religious views, political views, sexuality, gender; anything, and I mean anything, goes. People are happy to be there.</p></li>
</ol>

4

<p>

Bahahahahhaha - if you weren’t in California [which could.. be… a lie… lol.] I’d swear that you are this guy who I’m like best friends with at my school… lol. I think almost everything you post sounds just like him. Baha. Anyway. I thought I taught you about ERNEST HEMINGWAY [cough, farewell to arms, etc etc etc, cough] in that other thread… :] So you have no excuse on that one! Haha.</p>

<p>Although I like your answers, at least you show that you got them wrong without TRYING to get them right - and that’s better than trying hard to get the right answer and still epic failing. One time my friend put my name down as the answer for “Who was the 2nd President of the United States?” :] No credit though, for that one, for some reason… aahahah. Which is funny, because I’m actually related to John Adams. lol.</p>

<p>Oh YEAH and in response to the actual question… since I’m procrastinating on more pressing matters…</p>

<p>Idc about the high school one, since I’m practically done.
For college, I like what faransaa wrote, except for a few things.</p>

<p>I’ll repost what I like, and change what I didn’t:</p>

<p>“1. Would maintain a certain level of intellectuality among students; no direct form of competitiveness pervading the campus; learning for its own sake is the main focus and want of (almost) every student”</p>

<p>“2. Fun times. By this I do not mean the obvious “frat fun” of binge drinking and purging thereafter. I am not a fan of the bulimic drinker. I do mean, however, a fun aside of Scrabble after a not-TOO-intense study session while discussing Nietsche and Dante over a cup of coffee, maybe listening to a poetry reading at a slam of sorts.” -------- without the scrabble and the studying and the listening… lol. I do love a good discussion though :]</p>

<p>skip No. 3</p>

<p>“4. The arts are a main focus on campus. (They draw larger crowds than the sports games). School spirit shared through a unifying love for all things cultural. Dance, theater, art, music, literature, all these things foster increased creativity in the already-creative student body. Everyone is passionate about something: languages, or philosophy, or juggling, or an exciting combination of the three. I don’t care what it is: the weirder, the better. Just have passion, uncontrollable, undying passion, for something(s).” ----- Yay :] This is me exactly.</p>

<p>Kind of skipping No.5 - I do not want a school that’s under like 3000 students [my HS has more than that…], but I would like a bit of a sense of community, at least. Small classes are nice, with accessible professors and such. [3000-5000] < that’s more of my ideal numbers.</p>

<ol>
<li>Professors are intelligent, engaging, thought-provoking and -encouraging, brilliant in their respective fields, and exceedingly receptive to outside needs. Willing to grab a cup of coffee/tea to talk about academics or life in general. Very open to anything.</li>
</ol>

<p>Skip No. 7 - I do want an “aware” student body that actually cares about what’s going on in the country/world, but I’d rather it be more balanced between moderate liberal and moderate conservative :] = MODERATE, lolololl. But I want enough difference in opinion between students that nice discussions/debates flow freely, make people think about their own beliefs, etc. I just wouldn’t want it SO divided that everyone’s arguing all the time and stuff.</p>

<p>I guess I agree with No. 8, but I don’t think that it’s a requirement of my IDEAL COLLEGE.</p>

5

<p>Lol, you certainly don’t need to finish assassin’s creed to get bored with it… so repetitive! Next one’ll be set in Japan though, appeals to me WAY more than Jerusalem and the rest of locales in this one…</p>

<p>Lol, for schools I would prefer one near a lot of hiking trails and with an active outdoors-y community – everybody would have to be at least as fit as I am and full of zest and passion for adventure. The student body would have to be incredibly intelligent, ideally with a wide variety of philosophical positions, because arguing for and against different points is fun. </p>

<p>There would have to be an overarching emphasis on the sciences, and that outdoors community would have to have members from multiple fields of study making it so that, if we were to ever get lost, we could accelerate a new civilization at least to post 1950s levels and rewrite the Library of Congress along with it. Plenty of people would reject empiricism as an unsound epistemology, sure, but deep down they’d have a token appreciation of it. ;]</p>

<p>Professors would have to be at least few orders of magnitude smarter than their students. Nothing I dislike more (yay hyperbole) than the people I’m paying to teach me turning out to be horribly incompetent.</p>

<p>No interest at all in parties, but as already mentioned the people would have to generally accept my standards of fun. ;]</p>

<p>I probably couldn’t go to a school with any sort of religious emphasis or any heavy lean towards the arts. </p>

<p>The weather would have to be nice.</p>

<p>Don’t really care much about size.</p>

<p>OH, it would also have to be free! ;D</p>

<p>Lol, and your whole self deprecation shtick is really starting to get annoying ;p</p>

6

<p>

This is your definition of “fun times”?</p>

7

<p>Lol I mean I totally respect that, but it sounds a little trying-too-hard-to-be-intellectual for me… ;]</p>

8

<p>

I don’t get it.</p>

<p>Anyways, nice long detailed descriptions…especially the first two with such images..</p>

<p>(on another side note, this new forum set-up has turned into the… you can visit others’ profiles now and leave messages and etc…it’s turned into 90% of the other forums I go on). ;)</p>

9

<p>What is the ideal high school to CCers?</p>

<p>Who are your ideal peers and teachers? What would the environment be like in order to foster intellectuality and curiosity of thought? What would you change about your current high school to be more conducive to your individual needs? What would you keep the same? </p>

<p>A recent goal of mine, one that I think I will spend my life pursuing, is to found a school unique in culture, style, and approach, a school different from the “status quo” and conducive to learning for its own sake. I have not found this in any of my three high schools. Dissatisfied, completely and wholly, with the state of our nation’s current educational methods, I think it’s about time for a change.</p>

<p>What do you think? Are you satisfied with YOUR high school?</p>

10

<p>Ideal college:</p>

<p>Division I sports. Top 25 football and basketball teams
Smart, fun students
Nice buildings.
In close proximity to a city of 500,000+ people
5000+ undergrads</p>

11

<p>Ok
Academics:
It would sound wrong for me to ask for nobel winning professors,etc. But if my parents are shelling out 50 grand for an education I would hope that it pays off. Also, one of my biggest problems with high school is small class size. I know it’s strange, and most people cherish this but I am the type of person who will somewhat absorb what’s being taught in class and then go home and fully understand it. Which is why I hate it when my teachers randomly call on people to answer questions, because I am always the one answering “ummm idk?”.
But I would also like for professors to be available during office hours, to answer any questions that arise when I am studying by myself.
Another thing I can’t stand about High School that I wish is gone by the time in College is teacher bias. in AP Stats, I completely blew off doing homework for a week and now the teacher hates me and she always looks for ways to screw me over on tests and quizzes, even stupid **** like forgetting to write my name.</p>

<p>Student Population:
One of my high hopes for college is that there will no longer be any real idiots and I will finally be around people who I can actually have a real conversation with , without having to omit vocabulary and basically dumbing my thoughts down to a 5th grade level.
Preferably a diverse group of kids, from a variety of ethnic backgrounds and social classes. Also a large student body is welcome</p>

<p>Setting::::
I’m strictly applying to urban schools, with NYU (Stern) as my first choice. Recently it’s been my dream to live in a large city, especially NYC, as well as maybe Boston and Chicago. I’ve been to all 3, especially New York (since I live on LI), and I find them to be th most fascinating places on earth.</p>

12

<p>Haluan:

  1. Between 1001-6000 undergraduates
  2. A large population of international students (8-15 percent of undergraduate population), and at least 1 Finn (:
  3. A major in Communications
  4. Many language programs from which to choose, if not major.
  5. Study Abroad in Africa (:
  6. Located in a large city
  7. The absence of Sororities and Fraternities on or off Campus
  8. The largest class size set at 31. Absolutely no larger.
  9. I want to be able to have intellectual discussions outside of class - hey, is that too much for which to ask?
  10. Everyone participates in Intramural sports.
  11. Everyone is involved in something (:
  12. People who don’t care too much about political correctness, because too much correcting gets on my nerves.
  13. Not an academically competitive school - not in terms of admission, believe me, that’s fine, but I like the idea of learning for the sake of learning.
  14. Accessible, intelligent, engaging professors.
  15. Absence of lecture style classes.</p>

<p>This is definitely a dream school… and I’m okay with that.</p>

13

<p>Urban
No competitiveness
Prestige (I know it conflicts with No. 2 but…)
Diversity
Financial aid</p>

<p>I don’t feel uneasy around people who don’t catch up fast enough, except those that are too slow (asking for explanations to the nth time). I don’t mind being “superior” XD</p>

14

<p>

</p>

<p>yes. (while keeping in mind that there is no perfect school)</p>