<p>HI,
my family will move in a new apartment next week. Currently, we’re choosing between an apartment that allows me to stay at my old school in senior year and an apartment allowing me to go to a better high school. Here’s the comparison of the two schools:</p>
<p>Old school:
pros: - good relationship with counselors and teachers.
- I’m currently the one of the best students there.
- The dual enrollment program at a local community college, which saves me a lot of money.
cons: - Students’ academic performance is quite low. ( Most of my fellow IB students, who are considered the elite in this school, does not know how to use their calculators to do basic algebra. Our average ACT score is 16.)
- Lack of competent Ap teachers because my old school focuses mainly on the IB program, which s!cks. Ap classes are full of drop-out IB students who believe that AP is easier than IB. As a result, we dont even have an AP calculus AB teacher.
- Old school rarely sends students to top colleges. </p>
<p>New school:
Pros: -Better overall
- Have more choices for Ap classes. Experienced Ap teachers
- Send some students to top colleges<br>
- Better peers
Cons:
I may not be one of the best students here.
No dual enrollment program
Have to redevelop relationships with counselors and teachers to have them write letters of recommendation for me</p>
<p>Could I still request recommendations from the teachers of the old school for my college application? If I couldn’t do so, what school would be a best choice for me?</p>
<p>I’m planning on applying to Columbia, and Chicago this fall.</p>
<p>In this case, if you have good standardized scores and you think your teachers will be able to write good letters of recommendation for you, go with your old school.</p>
<p>The thing to keep in mind here is that its your senior year… even though your new school is better overall and sends more students to top colleges, your old grades will be listed under your old school, so you won’t actually benefit that much for the “prestige” of your new school except for your first semester senior year grades (if you can ace those at your new school, it would of course be to your advantage).</p>
<p>From your old school, you should be able to have better letters of recommendations (most likely… unless counselors/teachers are bad at writing letters of rec), you’ll stand out as one of the best students there (your standardized test scores, if great, would help balance out any negative effects of your school’s reputation; for example, if you get high SAT II scores with your high grades, it’ll show you actually do know the material), you probably will have more EC opportunities for senior year (ie. sports… easier to maintain varsity standing, clubs… you will actually have a position rather than not having one at your new school, etc.), etc.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s other factors to consider like price of apartments, necessity of living somewhere, etc. Would be worth it to look into requesting recommendations from teachers of old school if you do switch (not sure of the answer to that).</p>
<p>If you’re thinking that dual enrollment at a CC is going to save you money, you should know that Columbia does not accept credits from college courses taken prior to matriculation.</p>