What's YOUR high school like?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
21

<p>My public school has about 1200 kids, grades 8-12. The administration is actually very fair and rational and is open to change. Counselors vary, but mine was great, very kind and on the ball. The only problem is we are a minority-majority school and it causes problems. In honors classes (let alone AP) I’ve been with one african american student (my friend) and no Spanish students in classes of 25-30 kids. In a school thats 35-40% spanish and 15-20% black thats crazy. There were a lot of race based fights as well as racial segregation. Its really sad because its a great school with awesome teachers, but too many students are here to form gangs, harass others, and fight than are here to actually learn or even care at all.</p>

<p>However of those that do try we have good results. Many go to the state school, but this year we had Duke, Brown, Berkeley, NDx2, Middlebury, McGill, Purdue, BCx2, and UChicago to name some.</p>

22

<p>I go to a public high school in TN…Home of the Admirals :)…</p>

<p>I go to a large school, with 2100 students. We are way to over packed because the county sends the 100 kids from the failing hs to our hs. I live in the more affluent part of town…so i go to school with a bunch of rich white kids. Its not suprising to see a bunch of bmws, mercedes, and lexuses in the parking lot. Most of our teachers cant afford to live near the school. We are in a huge need of funding but then again which school isnt :)…</p>

<p>It sounds like im complaining, but i rly do luv my hs. The AP teachers are awesome…they’re so passionate about what theyre teaching. The guidance counselors are great, they let me take what i want no matter how hard the classes will be. If you ask nicley the conselor will even make an effort to put u and ur friends in the same classes. </p>

<p>Out of the 550ish in class i wanna say 60ish are over achieving…these are the kids that want to go to top tier schools. We do send a few of them to ivies. Out of the 550 a large precentage does care about their grades…and theyll go to state flag ships.</p>

23

<p>My school is about 2,500 people. Our school is known for having the best dances in our district because have less restrictions. Save for a lot of drugs and pointless fights, we’re pretty well off. </p>

<p>Academic-Wise: For the most part, about half our teachers are really good. Most of our AP teachers have reputations for being the best in the school and the people who take their classes are worked really hard and mostly get 4’s and 5’s on their exams. Up until this year I had no idea how many take higher level classes. </p>

<p>As for the other half, most of them have some capability to teach, but mostly just lack in personality and can be boring or gets angry easily (I had one who was actually a really good teacher too). A couple others have very likable personalities and don’t get angry easily, but they can be mediocre teachers. I know of one or two extremely pessimistic “hairline trigger” teachers. </p>

<p>Overall rating:7/10</p>

24

<p>Let me take you to a dilapidated, Catholic citadel centered in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods in one of the most crime-ridden counties in Wisconsin. Observe the bullet holes in the windows facing the smoke shop across the street. See the old playing field where a convent once stood and the ancients once played. Don’t mind the smell, this HS is special in that it may be the only building in the world where at least one person has diharrea in one of the toilets…every day of the school year…</p>

25

<p>@niklas my school is the same with all of the drugs! Weed is super easy to get here because so many people have the money to get it! And I’m one of the few people who is in the middle of all of the groups, cause I’m an athlete, I care about my academics, and i’m involved with musical programs, one of the main reasons I was elected as a class officer, because I’m friends with everyone!</p>

26

<p>I love my school.</p>

27

<p>There are about 2,300 people at my school I believe. I have 700ish in my class (we’re on the bigger side) of those about 85% go to college of some kind and I think we have a 70-80% AP pass rate. There are 3 academic levels, Honors/AP/IB, College Prep and non college prep. About the top 20% are enrolled in mostly level one, the top 20-60% in college prep and the rest in most level 3. Most of the teachers are great but there are a couple bad ones. We have one of the best music programs in the country. Basically it’s a great school, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else.</p>

28

<p>I like to just think of my school system has one big bottomless h***hole. I go to the traditional high school (we have a New Tech and Early College also) and it is somewhat horrible. My school will have less than 600 this year compared to the '90s when there used to be over 1000. We only have 4 APs (Eng Lit, Stats, Calc AB, and USH) and the passing rates on those are very dismal. We made AYP for the first time in about 5-6 years and raised our composite passing rate from 55 to 63 in a year. Our SAT average is horrible and is expected to be even lower (1260 for 09-10, projected to be 1200 for 10-11).</p>

<p>The kids here are smart, but they are either whores, druggies, or “too cool to learn”. I live in a rural county with about 25% poverty, so you have some crazy things going on here, including a former school board member committing crimes all the time. There are a few kids who are out of the norm in our school (4.0+ GPA, 1900+ SAT, etc.) and they usually go on to UNC or NC State. Nobody here starts strong freshman year and then they all of a sudden wants to raise their 2.9 to a 3.2 by the end of senior year. </p>

<p>Leadership here is crazy now because the school board doesn’t want to a hire another assistant principal for our school when we are in desperate need of one. Our principal and assistant principal are really cool guys, but nobody wants to listen to them. They are making strides to make the school even better. It’s just the discipline that is killing us now. </p>

<p>The teachers here are really good, it’s just that no one comes to class. You can find most of these teachers teaching at way better schools with kids who want to learn, but they stay here because they feel that they have something to help make our school better. My Algebra 2 teacher taught at one of the top schools in Raleigh and came here and made Algebra 1 scores jump from 11% to 75% and Algebra 2 scores jump from 13% to 88%. My Biology teacher graduated from Emory and has Biology scores at an all time high for the school. My English teacher just got back in the classroom from being a principal and has English scores higher than any other school in any of the surrounding counties. The writing teacher came from Jamaica and had writing scores above 85%.</p>

<p>My school is somewhat horrible because of the kids, but is amazing as in terms of leadership and teachers.</p>

29

<p>Mine is quite diverse and interesting. Its located in a richer suburb, with 1600 kids.</p>

<p>There’s a small group of ‘gifted’ kids (~50) who don’t even leave their classes and join AP Physics and AP Calculus. In their Sophomore year.</p>

<p>There’s a few kids, about 30, that don’t ever show up. Cause they’re in college, while still in HS.</p>

<p>Then there’s the APers, both Jrs and Srs. They make up about 30% of the school and will apply to USC and Yale and Harvard. Their teachers are absolute a-holes, though.</p>

<p>The Honors kids make up about 10%. They strive, but won’t commit to any more.</p>

<p>The average kids make up 50%. Little interest to learn. They all expect to go to college, but being in Geometry in their Senior year doesn’t help.</p>

<p>Then there’s the lower tier. Those that do drugs, sometimes show up, and make our school look bad. </p>

<p>Our ESL students (and generally the AP and up kids) hail from Mongolia to the Northern Marianas, Latvia to Uganda. Its super diverse, and they all get along well.</p>

<p>As for clubs, we have over 60 of them. Some of them used to be hugely amazing, and some went to meet the President of the US, or compete throughout the world. Sadly, graduating classes and lack of advertising made a few go into bankruptcy.</p>

<p>We’ve got 21 APs, and those that take them and succeed is what makes my school shine.</p>

30

<p>my school is a private school that opened just before my freshman year, so they school and all the students were new. It has about 500-600 student at the moment. Most of the kids are either jocks, dummies who don’t care about school or their futures, or druggies. There is a very small minority of very intelligent people who challenge themselves, with me being in this group. Every honors and AP class has the same people from this group of intelligent people, and all the classes are very small for this reason. I believe my honors physics class had about 14 people. The school administration is very strict (no pranks or hijinks can happen whatsoever) and try to boost school spirit by creating events for the students to participate in, most of which would be more suited to an elementary school or middle school. The teachers are very hit-or-miss; many are highly qualified and have studied at Notre Dame, Penn, etc with many teachers also teaching at respected universites. My chemistry teacher taught at Penn and Boston College, if I’m not mistaken. Other teachers have no teaching ability and teach nothing; instead, they rather let the students mess around and play games. Half the school hates it, the other half has school spirit and is fine being here, and I’m pretty sure the administration realizes just how many students would do anything to go to a public high school due to the lack of fun at my school. I’m fine being here, because most of the teachers love me since I care about doing well as opposed to most of the others, and I have a good base of friends. Pretty much all my friends are in the top 10 or 20 students in my class, because all the others are so dumb and high all the time that I can’t stand being around them.</p>

31

<p>You guys think your high school is small. Mine has about 350 kids, 50 in my grade. Same high school cliques as everyone else I imagine. About 7 of us actually care the rest are doing drugs or focused solely on sports.</p>

32

<p>Do all of us go to schools where the majority of students would rather fail than be branded with the status of being a “nerd” or an “overachiever”?</p>

33

<p>^no… 10char</p>

34

<p>@cod4pro: No… but most of the kids at my school are in seasonal sports and teachers will give them the edge/give the a grade bump once in a while.</p>

35

<p>I go to a large public school in South Florida. We have about 3500 students (790 in my grade). Most of the kids that go to my school are really rich. Like first car being a Ferrari rich. A lot of them are also avid drug users. When I moved and realized that I had to go to that school I was really disappointed but after spending my first year there, it’s not that bad. I thought everyone would be a snob that did drugs everyday and of course some of them are but, I found friends that relate to me and have the same goals that I do. 50% of the kids do okay, 25% are overachievers and the other 25% are slackers. I would say most of the overachievers settle and go to UF when they could get into way better schools. Our athletics pretty much suck except for girls soccer. Our marching band is phenomenal though so that definitely makes up for it. Most people that go to my school say that they hate it but I don’t at all. (Maybe that’s just because I love school in general). </p>

<p>Sent from my iPod touch using CC</p>

36

<p>I think pretty much any public HS is going to contain a majority of druggies/sluts/people who don’t care. I feel deprived compared to many of the other posters on CC. My school is considered the best in the area, though the school is ranked like 150th public school in the state. We have about 1,000 students, which is considered 4x the size of most of the other schools in the area. Of the 244 in my grade, maybe 30 take a majority of honors/AP classes (myself included). However, the students with the highest class rank are those who take regular classes, because the idiots in the administration weigh cp classes almost the same as ap classes. My guidance counselor also has not given me one piece of useful advice (thank god for CC). Most students don’t do homework, don’t study, and usually have a D average. Oh yes, and more than half the students do drugs regularly, and like 90% have smoked weed at least once in his or her life. We even had a group of 5 ninth graders form a “pregnancy pact” last year, with the goal to get pregnant just for the hell of it…sad. The worst part is almost all of our athletes get drunk and high every weekend (even the star athletes). Of course our school does has had some (very few) successful people. Last year 2 students went to Ivy League schools (Cornell and Penn). And a few have gone to Carnegie Mellon, NYU, Drexel in the past 5 years. I know I can’t change where I live, but I always wish I lived somewhere that had a good school, one that regularly sent students to top schools, was very involved in its AP program, and had a more competitive atmosphere. Maybe then would I have better test scores, an actual shot at top schools, and more AP credits (my school purposely avoids “teaching to the exam” because they want to teach the class their own way). It’s sad that I’m ranked #1 in my class with a 3.75 UW GPA (albeit I’ve had a challenging curriculum), and that my school’s average SAT score is 990 (Math and CR), and still considered the best in the area. I’m glad for sites like these, with motivated students, because my school does not provide such an atmosphere. I hope others on here who go to a crappy public HS feel the same way I do, that HS has just been an annoyance, and that you can’t wait to go on to college with (hopefully) more like-minded individuals as yourself. I know this has mostly been a rant, but I felt like posting this after receiving an e-mail from my guidance counselor who, yet again, pointed out things I’ve known since 10th grade…ugh.</p>

37

<p>well, almost 2000 kids, predominantly white, were in the top 50% of academics of our state, probably the hottest girls out of our district lol, um our sports are amaaaaazing, we have a radio station and newspaper and oh yea the most std’s out of any school in our district at one point, nevertheless were pretty decent ha</p>