<p>I've always wanted to ask people how their high school experience has been considering mine has been nothing short of boring and redundant. At our school, there is a small group of students who care about school that are in IB (about 200-300 out of 3,000) and the rest don't care at all. </p>
<p>This small portion of the population runs pretty much every club at school so there is literally no diversity in clubs. The same people I have classes with are the same people I see in like 3 different clubs. </p>
<p>Also, our administration is ridiculously strict to the point where we're not allowed to play basketball on the courts during lunch nor are we allowed to do pull ups on the pull up bars, which is draconian compared to other schools in our county. Not to mention our AP pass rates are like 20% and below...</p>
<p>Idk I've always wanted to know what it feels like to go to a school where lots of kids are super involved and care about their grades and teachers actually teach students.</p>
<p>There are little pathetic groups of people who huddle around and hates everyone else who are not in their “group”</p>
<p>My schoolmates (I can’t even consider them classmates because about 70% I never had classes with) are so oblivious about college. All they do is drink soda, say curse words, and torment teachers. And barely anyone takes AP classes. Not to mention full of emotional people who make a big deal about so-and-so is going out with so-and-so. And the guidance counselor persuades senior to go to In-state schools, not out-of-state.</p>
<p>My school literally prevents their students from overachieving. As my piano teacher says, “What!? They don’t want you to be smart?” I tried to take another AP science this year (with two other science classes already) and some dumb counselor’s aid wanted to report me for even having two sciences on my schedule -_-. Thank goodness my actual counselor came back to save my butt, but she still wouldn’t let me take another science.</p>
<p>Our school has about 1000 people (small school, I know), split into about 250 people per grade (9-12). Approximately 50-70 of those 250 actually care about their GPA/ranking/class rigor and of those 50-70, about 10 overachieve. Popular people tend to run all of the clubs.</p>
<p>I want to say our AP pass rate is ~40-50%, though it varies greatly between classes. For example, the pass rate for AP US is maybe ~60%, while the pass rate for AP Chem is more like ~5%. Sometimes not enough people even sign up for an AP class, so it gets cut off from the school until next year comes around.</p>
<p>Yeah most of our AP classes are filled with seniors who don’t really care and are just trying to fluff up their GPA cause they know how much of a joke our AP classes are and how easy it is to get an A. High school…-.-</p>
<p>Hahaha.
Really? And I thought my school was small (~1200)
And yeah my guidance counselor (when I asked if I could take 2 science class) said “Sweetie, it’s really hard and AP is for upperclassmen.”</p>
<p>Small. ~70ish people in 9-12. We’re all pretty much like a family, as corny as that sounds. Most of us have been here for awhile. I and a few others have been there from Kindergarten. It’s been a long 13 years. I don’t like my school’s administration (they’re incompetent 65% of the time) but I do love the majority of the people in it and a few of the teachers :)</p>
<p>I lost faith in our school when the counselors forgot to order a make up AP exam for a few students (not me, thankfully). I felt so bad for them…</p>
<p>And Lauren, that seems like a really one of a kind experience. 13 years in the same school wow lol.</p>
<p>I really lost faith in my whole school.
Most teachers are ■■■■■■■■ (seriously, I ended teaching my math class-Algebra2)
And I know. High school is <em>cough COUGH COUGHHHH</em> awe-pause-SOME</p>
<p>My school had a great chemistry teacher that taught us every thing so well, so well we all received a’s in the course. Apparently our administration had a fit and said he couldn’t give away so many good grades, so it’s like my school doesn’t want me to succeed. Our counselor also takes 2 weeks to process a little transcript. My school is pathetic…</p>
<p>I go to a small private all-boys school, and it’s been great.</p>
<p>Of the 88 kids in my class (<400 in the upper school; it’s a K-12 but 9-12 has its own building), I’d say about 70% care about their grades, at least to the point where they would argue with a teacher for a couple points on a test. In general, it’s very competitive, especially among the students around the middle 50 percentile. </p>
<p>Clubs, sports, etc are participated in very heavily, probably mostly as resume-boosters for college, since almost everyone cares about that. As a result, sometimes effort in clubs is lacking, but really it’d be hard to ask for much better in such a small class. School spirit is very high. </p>
<p>The administration is overall pretty lax about what you can and can’t do. Most of the discipline process is student-run, so that’s as fair as it could get as well. Great resources available for pretty anything you might expect a high school to have. Teachers are amazing: they care, participate in the community, have school spirit, etc.</p>
<p>Really the only complaint I might have about my school is that it’s so small. There’s maybe a handful of people in my class that I could truly say I can relate to and make great friends with, and academically it’s not as enjoyable due to lack of practically any interesting electives. But overall I’m happy, and reading what you guys are saying about your schools I think I should be satisfied with what I have, haha.</p>
<p>My high school is a pretty large school(2000+) and we have alot of kids who do take ap classes. But then usually take the easier ones that are basically required or otherwise you are in regular classes. There is a small group of students, including myself, who overachieve and take all ap classes, including classes we wouldn’t normally take until senior year(im a rising junior). These are also the same students though who participate in all of the clubs at our school, so I go from having class with them all day to having to see them again after school! Fortunately I’m an athlete so I get away from them at some point!</p>
<p>Small public school (500/600), has a lot of flaws…A LOT but I still enjoy what I have made of it there.</p>
<p>Academic’s for most classes are very limited due to the regents system in New York, but in the AP classes we actually do something worthwhile and you feel like your learning something. Very few people care about college seeing as many kids plan on going to the local community college.</p>
<p>Half the teachers there are barely qualified to teach in the first place, the other half should be doing a lot more than hanging around here. The good thing about the smarter teachers who just don’t care anymore is that you can actually have a casual conversation with a teacher without feeling like you are being talked down to. I have been able to easily skip classes and talk about life and politics and what not with teachers who have free periods. It’s definitely not the school for the higher college bound student but hey…it’s a school</p>
<p>Student body aren’t know to overachieve. The ones who do tend to become their own group and shun everyone else there. Most of the people here just party their lives away and high school is just filler. But if you can look past it you will find the closest thing to a real life reality with both ends of the spectrum interwoven into one place. </p>
<p>I would love to talk about administrations but it’s mostly non-existent and you will have to end up doing most things on your own.</p>
<p>I still like it here though, it’s a real school, with real people, real drama, and what you are going to expect just by walking in an everyday place.</p>
<p>Well the people at my high school are pretty okay. There are some people that are serious about there school work and there are people who just don’t care. It’s not to bad. My high school has also been a backdrop for many movies. Go rent the movie orange county! The school it takes place at is my high school!</p>
<p>I’m at a brand new high school and will be part of the first graduating class, with around 400-500 students and about 2000 students total at my school. I say my school is full of - not idiots, but drug addicts. Here in Orange County, everyone is so damn rich that weed is the school currency; several heroine addicts; LOTS of ****ing ecstacy taking ravers. Holy HELL is there a lot of gay ravers. And the rest (literally about half the school) are tough guy-jocks and total whores. Surprisingly, though, not that many actually fail, probably because they take the most basic classes, and the football coaches force their students through classes.</p>
<p>As for AP, we have decent teachers, but the science department is bad. My AP chemistry teacher was pregnant mid year and we had a substitute for 3 months up to the AP exam; we taught ourselves. And from what I’ve heard our AP Biology teacher (football coach…) is just a moron who preaches memorization. Hopefully the new AP Physics teacher will be good (he’s french). In AP, there are only about 60-90 students, so we all know each other.</p>
<p>The thing that I hate about my school is that it truly seems that no-one has any common sense; 90% of the school acts as though they’ve been sheltered by their rich parents. Even the “gangster” Mexican crew comes acting tough while wearing purple skinny jeans and dying their hair colors. I just don’t get the raveness of my school.</p>
<p>Another bad thing is that the staff are totally oblivious to the drug problem at the school. Students caught get 2-3 day suspension, and come back to sell again. And nearly everyone does it. Ugh.</p>
<p>Thankfully I’ll be out within a year, and I can leave this overly-rich part of the OC and get on with my life.</p>
<p>The people at my high school are a little snobby, but overall, they’re pretty nice. Also, everyone is extremely competitive. Last year, two people got accepted to ivies (Harvard and Stanford) and a couple got accepted to Johns Hopkins, Emory, and Rice. Since my school is set in an affluent area, there are many opportunities for academic and extracurricular activities, which is awesome. The teachers are amazing, except for a handful. The Latin/French 5 AP teacher is mentally ill. No really, she is. The school can’t fire her because she founded something important in our school or something.</p>
<p>The work at school is fast paced, which unfortunately, results in a heavy homework load. However, the faculty and staff keep it fun. For instance, every Friday, the student council plays music during the passing periods. There’s also many giveaways on pep rally days that include things such as t-shirts, iTunes giftcards, cash, etc.</p>
<p>The snobbiness at my school gets kind of burdensome though. It’s uncommon to see someone not wearing True Religion, Seven for All Mankind, Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, Free People, etc. This is including the guys, too! The students also drive better cars than the faculty. It’s become normal to see a bunch of Mercedes, Range Rovers, Mustangs, and Lexuses all over the junior and senior parking lots.</p>
<p>My high school has over 2000 kids in it. The principal is always stressed. He rarely smiles. At the start of the year, he was welcoming the freshmen (my) class and told us to look around, because not all of the ~500 people in our class would make it to graduation. As in, they would drop out. That’s pretty typical here. We have a lot of pregnant girls, to the point where you actually see them in classes as opposed to hearing rumors. Teachers here don’t try to prepare you for college. They just want you to graduate. </p>
<p>There’s an overwhelming amount of gang activity. One student was shot last year. Our athletics are poor, save for wrestling and football. School spirit only exists in games where we are playing the rival school which is full of rich white kids. If students graduate here, then they usually don’t do anything post high school. Community college is the most popular option, but some go to local state universities. The rival high school is sending grads to Dartmouth, Swarthmore, NYU, Cal Poly, UCB, among others.</p>
<p>Besides the poor academics, my school is pretty good. AP classes are a joke, but we don’t really have any defining “cliques”. There are definitely circles of friends, though band geeks and cheerleaders hang out with theatre kids all the time. </p>
<p>There isn’t a serious drug problem. A lot of people smoke weed, and a lot of people drink. But it isn’t out of control, per say.</p>
<p>There are some really cool people, it just takes a lot of digging to find them. And we have some great teachers. It isn’t a bad place, merely frustrating for somebody who’s aiming for a top 20 school.</p>