We are an expat family moving back to the States and DS(rising junior) with goals of private/public Ivie has choice to attend a small Stem focused charter school in an urban setting(highly diverse in terms of race/economic background) but limited resources vs a large high school(3800+ students) with lots of resources. but highly competitive. Basically, is it better to excel in a smaller school but with less AP classes and teacher support, or go to the bigger school, but highly competitive with most students taking 9+ AP classes and juggling extracurriculars. Because the suburban school so competitive, it might actually hurt his college admission chances as there are so many high stats students to compete with. Alternatively, if he chooses the urban charter school, he has smaller classes and more opportunity to âshineâ
I suggest your son attends the school that will fit him best.
Does he need the academic challenge of the suburban school or the STEM orientation and size of the charter?
Itâs great to have goals - but in the end, you can get to a great college from anywhere.
Which location is best for the family to buy a home (affordability, desirability, livability) and which school environment will the student be most comfortable?
Either way, heâll end up in the college hierarchy where he is qualified.
In other words, I wouldnât allow college hopes or desires to impact this decision whatsoever.
Good luck.
Honestly, he will be fine at either school. Also we have options for family location, each school is about 40 minutes from each other, with our home being in the center. We have a 20 minute commute in either direction.
Since DS will be new to the school, I wonder if transitioning to a smaller school would be easier socially than transferring as a junior into a huge school.
Thanks for your input!
As for transitioning - definitely kid dependent.
Some adapt well in large settings while others donât.
Thatâs socially, resource wise, etc. and you never know where youâll meet your bff.
Our kids thrived at a large school.
It really is child dependent.
Did you visit the schools?
What we liked about the large school were all of the course and EC options.
All 3 of our kids were ânerdyâ athletes. All three had their own groups of diverse friends. Their high school was unique because there were 87 languages spoken by the almost 4000 students. Their friends were from every cultural group.
Yes it was very competitive but the teachers made it fun for them.
The physics department had annual Balsawood boat races.
The staff brought in foreign language specialists who ran after-school courses in Tagalog, Vietnamese, Italian, etc.
The music department had an annual Christmas concert whereby the (new) music teachers wanted to cancel the concerts-too much effort to coordinate all of the orchestras along with the community parades. The students petitioned to have it put back in and recruited hundreds of parent volunteers to work the concert and the parades. They kept an annual list.
They had ACT/SAT study groups with timing contests.
They had a staff/parents versus students Academic bowl.
They had sanctioned and unsanctioned senior ditch day activities. Our school is not that far from rural areas. One of the kids had a chicken farm. I donât think he got permission from his parents but when you have about 100 chickens running on campus during senior ditch day with staff in suits trying to chase them down (and catch them) pretty funny!
They had amazing team coaches. They had to abide by school districtâs âvictory with honorâ codes.
I taught at a small charter, as well as the high school. My preference was the large high school. The resources and the personality of the school were too good to pass up.
Visit the schools Facebook pages and see what they say.
âLess teacher supportâ at the smaller school ?
This is my reaction also.
I think that I would take college admissions off the table, and just not worry about it at this point. Instead I would think about which school would be a better fit for my child.
To me the transition would seem likely to be less stressful moving to a smaller school. To me, â9+ AP classesâ seems excessive. Also, at least in my career a highly diverse work force with coworkers from all over the world is what I was used to, and I liked having this opportunity. This would all tend to push me towards the smaller urban charter school if it were my choice.
However, I do not know your son.
And I expect that college / university should work out fine either way.
What year would he enter?
What APs (or PLTW or dual enrollment access) does the charter school offer?
Does it offer 4 years in a language other than English?
Will he be able to join clubs and activities or is it too small to offer clubs/sports
For someone returning from abroad (which will necessarily be a transition both socially and culturally) a smaller school may be better, as long as academic basics are covered and the school offers decent options. A diverse school may also be more âreal worldâ, hopefully with classmates who have lived abroad too, with relatives or because their parents moved them here or for any circumstance, but who may relate to his previous experiences of bilingualism, displacement, third-culture spacesâŠ
If your son needs the challenge of a rigorous academic environment, with lots of AP classes, Iâd go with the excellent suburban school. If he is an average high school student, taking college prep classes but not ready for APs, Iâd still go with the suburban school. In both of those situations, I suspect that heâd learn more, get a better education, at the suburban school. Iâd only put him in the urban charter STEM-focused school if he has issues that would interfere with his adjustment to the suburban school, that require a lot of individual attention and support.
One consideration is which state the high schools are in. If Texas, class rank competition will be much more important for in-state public universities, and much more intense in high schools with many high achieving and aspiring students, compared to other states.
D24 did her first two years at a large high achieving suburban high school, and her last two years at a small, lottery admission based public cooperative innovative high school which drew from anywhere in the county.
Do you know how previous class grades would be incorporated into the cumulative GPA at each school? Depending on how they handle it, there could be dramatic impacts on GPA (weighted and/or unweighted) and class rank.
How does each school handle late-ish registrations? At the large school D24 attended, course registration for the following year would have already been done, and latecomers got what was left. It probably would be fine for the academic courses, but the more popular/limited enrollment electives were tough to get and some also required an interview. Iâve heard of some schools limiting AP class enrollments as well, would this be an issue at either place?
How do they compare with electives/EC of interest? Yearbook/literary magazine/robotics/PLTW/Choir/band/orchestra/Specialty sports/any sports at all/Theater?
D24âs small school was definitely lacking in some things that would have been a deal breaker for some kids (few clubs, no sports, no performance electives like band/theater). She found ways to work around the limitations, and benefited from the advantages, for her school those were small classes/involved teachers/ability to dive deeper into areas of interest through almost unlimited numbers of free community college classes.
In general, I would favor a larger school with more classes/opportunities, if those opportunities are actually accessible, which was iffy at her original large school. She had a plan and was working through the ranks at her original large public high school to get to leadership opportunities, so in the end either probably would have worked out.
Your S26 should prepare to hit the ground running, because coming in at junior level can be tough, especially when it comes to getting involved with extracurriculars. It can take a little time to get the connections/resources/knowledge/backing to be viable for a leadership position, no matter the size of the school.
Good luck and welcome back to the US!
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