Is Stuyvesant Over-Rated?

teenage_cliche
Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:23:57 +0000

As someone very familiar with Stuy, I would say that it’s a great public option in NYC. It is by no means better than some of the other selective publics or some of the privates, but it is a great school, and anyone who argues otherwise hasn’t done their research.

kwu: I respectfully disagree. I don’t know anything about Regis’ admissions process, but Hunter’s is very similar to Stuy’s and to the rest of the selective publics I’m familiar with in that it is very testing-based. The sole factor for admission to Hunter is testing, albeit a Hunter-specific test. I would also disagree that Hunter is “far more diverse than Stuy, ethnically and intellectually.” There’s a substantial East and South Asian population at both schools, moreso at Stuy, actually, and a larger immigrant population in general at Stuy. And as far as intellectually, I can say that having met dozens of Stuy students during my time at Hunter I really don’t see any clear academic or intellectual difference. Most students I know at one school would be absolutely fine in the other. There are differences, of course, notably size and Stuy’s stronger focus on the sciences, but to say that the two schools are tremendously different and that one is much better than the other at anything as general as pure academic performance or intellectualism is just silly.