High School Guide: Admissions, reviews, and advice

Peter Rogers said:I had absolutely no clue the FBI was even involved, but it’s pretty wild to me that their closest branch is all the way out in San Antonio.
😲 Honestly, when you're dealing with an organization tied to the IRS—you know, an actual government agency—shouldn't you expect this kind of info to be accessible to every single student?
It's actually making me a little heated right now.
Kids living in California, along the Coast, up in Appalachia, or down in Florida are basically being left out in the cold.

So, how is a kid even supposed to sign themselves up? Do they have to trek down to an IRS office or find some psychologist, or what's the deal?
Because at the Elementary School, that's not an option. They just tell you that the orientation is strictly limited to certain programs.

at the IRS office
Maybe I have it wrong, because with all the recent flooding, there might be a huge surge of requests coming from PP and IP staff (and honestly, that whole situation is a mess).
They definitely could have made it available to anyone who wanted it.

Some were ordered by the schools, while others were handled by parents.
There wasn't any rule saying the school had to be the one to order them.

Emily Brown81 said:That’s exactly how it worked when I was heading off to college. I remember crushing an elective course with about a 70%, but still walked away with a C because the national test scores were just straight-up disastrous. 🐔

Honestly, that feels incredibly unfair. 😁Where does the idea come from—that your knowledge should be judged based on how everyone else is doing?
I mean, if I went out into the wilderness to live with some primitive tribes, would I suddenly be considered a neurosurgeon just because I know more than they do? 😂

Karen Richardson3 said:Honestly, the biggest shock to me is how intensely parents obsess over high school placement these days—it’s nothing like when we were just debating which school was slightly better a few years back 😁

Were your parents like that? Mine both had college degrees and they really wanted me to take over the family business, but when it came to school, their attitude was basically "just do well or you won't have any options." As for high school, my mom wanted me to go to the one closest to home, but I picked one further away because there was this guy I liked (and maybe a little bit to spite her too 😁 just like with college, since I didn't end up taking over the family business 🕺 ).

Regarding the school schedule, I was always a night owl (meaning I'd grind through all those assignments and studying until the early hours), so if I had an early morning class, I’d just pass out on the couch after lunch. I personally loved the afternoon shift because I could be home alone, grab a coffee, light up a cigarette, and just mope around the way you're supposed to do in high school 😁
I seriously respect anyone who manages to juggle sports on top of high school; back then, I couldn't even wrap my head around adding one more single obligation to my plate 😁

It was pretty similar for me, except...
My parents only had high school diplomas, so their main focus was just making sure I was doing okay and staying out of trouble (and, you know, staying away from drugs or sketchy crowds 🤣).
I actually had to go downtown by myself to drop off my paperwork, even though a new school had opened up in our neighborhood a year or two prior. It had those fancy modern lockers, almost like something out of Beverly Hills. But they insisted we wear slippers inside the school, which was my first big "no" from them, even though I handed in all my copies
. Secondly, I wanted to travel downtown and was planning on being late to school and coming home late, too.

The only way my dad "helped" with enrollment was by making copies of the forms for that other school he found somewhere
. With my sister, there wasn't even that, because she was part of the generation where you just applied to one single school
.
In my second year, I wanted to transfer to a different high school that had a separate entrance; besides the fact that there were more guys there and I had a crush, it was definitely a lot easier. My parents wouldn't let me, though, saying, "Well, you chose this school yourself." Plus, I would've had to pass an IT exam that they took in freshman year while we took it in sophomore year, and the thought of failing that totally overwhelmed me
.
At my school, there were kids who also attended the local music academy (which made me think they had zero social life and that their parents weren't exactly normal). A friend of mine did synchronized swimming for the first two years before quitting because practice was always at 6:00 AM, regardless of her school schedule. There were also plenty of students enrolled in language academies (I actually signed up for one at one point, mostly because I realized I needed to master English for the SATs). By the looks of things now, those exams seemed significantly harder than what's required today. Those who cruised through every grade with straight As were exempt from certain tests, yet they often performed worse on entrance exams than those of us who actually sat for the full exams
.

rowdypanther12 said:Honestly, that feels incredibly unfair. 😁Where does the idea come from—that your knowledge should be judged based on how everyone else is doing?
I mean, if I went out into the wilderness to live with some primitive tribes, would I suddenly be considered a neurosurgeon just because I know more than they do? 😂

It sounds like this idea comes from people who believe that every single student gets the exact same quality of education, no matter which school they attend. Personally, I’ve always felt that's a bit of an oversimplification. Even in my own experience growing up, one district could be miles ahead of another just based on funding or local resources. It's definitely more complicated than just assuming the playing field is level for everyone. 🤣
And they really should be on equal footing, too. 😬

It honestly blows my mind every single time I look at the requirements for getting into a teaching program. It’s wild to me that a B grade in math is actually enough to get you through the door. It’s one of those things that just gets under my skin, especially when you realize how much the passing threshold shifts depending on how everyone else performed on the exam. It feels like moving goalposts, and frankly, it's pretty frustrating.

Susan James said:It sounds like this idea comes from people who believe that every single student gets the exact same quality of education, no matter which school they attend. Personally, I’ve always felt that's a bit of an oversimplification. Even in my own experience growing up, one district could be miles ahead of another just based on funding or local resources. It's definitely more complicated than just assuming the playing field is level for everyone. 🤣
And they really should be on equal footing, too. 😬

It honestly blows my mind every single time I look at the requirements for getting into a teaching program. It’s wild to me that a B grade in math is actually enough to get you through the door. It’s one of those things that just gets under my skin, especially when you realize how much the passing threshold shifts depending on how everyone else performed on the exam. It feels like moving goalposts, and frankly, it's pretty frustrating.

In my opinion, the class of 2022 and the class of 2023 deserve equal footing too. 😁
it feels a little silly if you ask me

rowdypanther12 said:In my opinion, the class of 2022 and the class of 2023 deserve equal footing too. 😁
it feels a little silly if you ask me

Why not just add another rule where people could graduate in 2016, spend years traveling the world, and then just enroll in college in 2022?

Susan James said:Why not just add another rule where people could graduate in 2016, spend years traveling the world, and then just enroll in college in 2022?

So, if you don't feel like studying, you just have to guess which year will have the worst students? 😂
It's honestly a mess. I don't get why everything in this country has to be made so complicated.🤔

rowdypanther12 said:So, if you don't feel like studying, you just have to guess which year will have the worst students? 😂
It's honestly a mess. I don't get why everything in this country has to be made so complicated.🤔

🤣🤣🤣
Exactly!

I don't know, I've personally found this whole shift pretty hard to stomach from the start... all this Americanization and the push toward mindless conformity, the standardization of tests, those multiple-choice questions, and the endless prep work just to learn how to bubble in a circle correctly.... 🙄

From what I’ve heard about how medical schools have been rejecting high school diploma results in favor of their own entrance exams, I’d say there are still some nuggets of common sense left somewhere.
At the end of the day, we generally want to be operated on by people whose fundamental understanding of physics didn't rely on the knowledge of random passersby who just showed up to the physics exam as a tourist.
(I'm exaggerating a bit, but it's not far from the truth. There were even whispers about people nudging friends to take certain subjects just to pad the class average. And averages get dragged down by everyone—including those taking exams in H&M or Mattel subjects when they never actually had them in their high school curriculum or even a program where the subject was taught properly, though you can't exactly say that out loud...) 🙂

Susan James said:They usually go through aptitude, interest, and personality tests, which take about an hour to ninety minutes.
Then there's an interview with a psychologist (with just the kid in the room).
Parents aren't officially interviewed, though they often push to share their thoughts, and people do listen to them.
However, the final decision shouldn't be swayed by what the parents want.

The findings and opinions from any specialist following the child definitely matter, mainly because certain recommendations can act as contraindications—if someone expresses a specific preference, it might be immediately crossed off the list if it's not a good fit.
For some kids, it really does narrow down their options to just a handful of schools, so it makes sense to give them extra credit for enrollment or set aside those three reserved spots that schools hold specifically for students who don't have many other places to go.

Those kids should be called in.
You can also request testing on your own.

Or this

Okay, thanks. She has a contraindication, so we aren't even considering that. But regarding what she wants, I’m going to request that it be explicitly stated in all the reports.

Susan James said:I’m curious, where exactly are these imaginary parents and child advocates coming from?
Aside from the teachers who openly admit they hand out As just to get parents and inspectors off their backs (basically to prevent them from showing up in the first place), I don't know anyone who actually supports the current system.
And I know a pretty wide circle of people.

From what I see here, the only thing parents seem to disagree on is whether this entrance exam should be universal or if individual schools should have the freedom to design their own. They worry about kids being stressed by taking six different exams in five days. Well, whatever—stress is part of life.
But honestly, that’s still less stressful than not knowing if you'll actually get into the school you want because some other kid barely scraped by with a passing grade and snagged a spot ahead of you.

Given the total circus that the state standardized testing has become, and seeing how universities—which actually care about students having actual subject mastery rather than just meeting population quotas—have successfully implemented their own entrance exams, I’m all for letting each school set its own standards and pick the students it wants.

If we’re talking about corruption (which exists and will always exist), it seems way more likely that someone at an elementary school would give kids a copy of a universal test to "study" for, simply because they don't want to deal with the fallout when those kids struggle in high school due to their lack of knowledge. It's much easier than a high school teacher having to deal with unprepared students later on.

Most elementary school teachers are genuinely concerned about how their students will fare in high school. If they weren't, they’d put more effort into what they teach and what they require for an A. And I’m not just talking about handing out easy grades or rounding up a B+ to an A just because a kid has one good day. I mean the sheer amount of material required to actually earn an A. Right now, you can have straight As all year and have almost zero actual knowledge.

It’s one thing with subjects like history or geography, which tend to build on themselves in high school. But take math, for example: if you don't master the basics, you're stuck. You won't be able to follow math, physics, or computer science, especially once you hit high school.
And don't even get me started on the lack of knowledge in American History dating back to the Reagan era... I won't even waste my breath on that.

Around here, every single professor insists on drafting their own custom tests, often stretching them out to four or five pages. Their excuse? They claim they have to do all this extra work just to accommodate everyone who's been spoon-fed a standardized curriculum.

So, you can probably expect this to trickle down into the schools too. If you end up in a bad class, getting a 70% on a test might actually land you a B or even an A.😂

rowdypanther12 said:So, you can probably expect this to trickle down into the schools too. If you end up in a bad class, getting a 70% on a test might actually land you a B or even an A.😂

It looks like things are already starting to overflow.
I put a lot of thought into what I wrote; I don't just post things for the sake of posting.
It feels like we aren’t quite hitting our stride with this material yet. To make things easier on everyone, I'm going to simplify the content a bit—expect the upcoming test questions to be much more straightforward.
I saw what mellowskipper mentioned earlier about the testing protocols—apparently, if more than half the kids end up getting the same score, the whole thing gets tossed out. It’s a bit of a headache, isn't it? I remember back when my nephew was taking his standardized tests in Chicago, we had a similar scare where everyone thought the results wouldn't count because the curve was so skewed. It definitely adds a layer of stress to the whole process!
I honestly can't say for sure—we aren't quite certain if that second test was just as tough or maybe even a little easier than the first one.

I’ve always felt that "difficulty" is such a subjective thing. What feels like an uphill battle to me might be a total breeze for someone else, and vice versa. It really just comes down to the individual.
It gets so much harder when you’re dealing with parental expectations. It’s one thing to manage a classroom, but it’s a whole different ballgame when parents start measuring success by their own arbitrary standards. There’s nothing quite like that sudden pressure from moms and dads who start questioning your teaching methods or claiming something is wrong with the curriculum just because more than half the class landed a D on a test. I remember one time back in my first year teaching in Chicago, a parent pulled me aside because their kid didn't get an A, acting like the entire lesson plan was flawed. It’s tough to stay calm when you know you're doing the work, but they only see the grade.
If you’re dealing with those kids who are complaining about their shoes being uncomfortable but just can't bring themselves to explain it to their parents, here is a little tip: just call in an inspection. If you hand out a test or some simple essay prompts, everyone will breeze right through it without any drama.

mellowskipper said:Okay, thanks. She has a contraindication, so we aren't even considering that. But regarding what she wants, I’m going to request that it be explicitly stated in all the reports.

Around here, every single professor insists on drafting their own custom tests, often stretching them out to four or five pages. Their excuse? They claim they have to do all this extra work just to accommodate everyone who's been spoon-fed a standardized curriculum.

or maybe they just make them easier.🤔
I’m just guessing here, but if that were actually the case, I bet we’d see at least three sets of parents per grade level calling in the school board to demand we stick to the standard testing.
But hey, maybe someone who knows more about how the school district works can weigh in.🙂

Susan James said:or maybe they just make them easier.🤔
I’m just guessing here, but if that were actually the case, I bet we’d see at least three sets of parents per grade level calling in the school board to demand we stick to the standard testing.
But hey, maybe someone who knows more about how the school district works can weigh in.🙂

I'm not sure, but based on the links shared here, the school my little one goes to is incredibly tough and strict, yet all the teachers just write their own tests.😁

rowdypanther12 said:I'm not sure, but based on the links shared here, the school my little one goes to is incredibly tough and strict, yet all the teachers just write their own tests.😁

Looking at those links, I honestly can't tell if those kids actually made it into the top-tier academies or if they just ended up in some easier local schools to keep their GPAs looking good after missing the cutoff for the more competitive programs.
I’ve been thinking about this lately: do you think those kids who struggle to keep up once they hit high school actually overextended themselves early on? I wonder if they pushed for those top-tier grades in middle school—maybe by memorizing everything just to ace the tests without truly grasping the material—only to find it impossible to maintain that same pace when the workload gets more intense. Or, looking at it from another angle, maybe they actually did learn the material, but they just weren't prepared for the sudden jump in difficulty. It's like moving from a local community college course straight into a rigorous program at a place like Stanford; even if you know your stuff, the sheer level of expectation can be a total shock to the system.

To be fair, those were just the grades from the high school graduation exams. Back then, that specific generation actually set their own passing thresholds, so they decided what the cutoff would be themselves. 🤣

I honestly think the only way this actually makes sense is if you compare your child to a student from another school based on what they actually know right now. You have to look at their current knowledge levels in real time to get any kind of useful comparison.

Susan James said:It looks like things are already starting to overflow.
I put a lot of thought into what I wrote; I don't just post things for the sake of posting.
It feels like we aren’t quite hitting our stride with this material yet. To make things easier on everyone, I'm going to simplify the content a bit—expect the upcoming test questions to be much more straightforward.
I saw what mellowskipper mentioned earlier about the testing protocols—apparently, if more than half the kids end up getting the same score, the whole thing gets tossed out. It’s a bit of a headache, isn't it? I remember back when my nephew was taking his standardized tests in Chicago, we had a similar scare where everyone thought the results wouldn't count because the curve was so skewed. It definitely adds a layer of stress to the whole process!
I honestly can't say for sure—we aren't quite certain if that second test was just as tough or maybe even a little easier than the first one.

I’ve always felt that "difficulty" is such a subjective thing. What feels like an uphill battle to me might be a total breeze for someone else, and vice versa. It really just comes down to the individual.
It gets so much harder when you’re dealing with parental expectations. It’s one thing to manage a classroom, but it’s a whole different ballgame when parents start measuring success by their own arbitrary standards. There’s nothing quite like that sudden pressure from moms and dads who start questioning your teaching methods or claiming something is wrong with the curriculum just because more than half the class landed a D on a test. I remember one time back in my first year teaching in Chicago, a parent pulled me aside because their kid didn't get an A, acting like the entire lesson plan was flawed. It’s tough to stay calm when you know you're doing the work, but they only see the grade.
If you’re dealing with those kids who are complaining about their shoes being uncomfortable but just can't bring themselves to explain it to their parents, here is a little tip: just call in an inspection. If you hand out a test or some simple essay prompts, everyone will breeze right through it without any drama.

The test was the same. And yet, two students still failed. But now, we can actually attribute that to them simply not studying.
This is the first time in five years that a test has been scrapped, so I wouldn't go so far as to say the kids are lazy or slow.

Susan James said:or maybe they just make them easier.🤔
I’m just guessing here, but if that were actually the case, I bet we’d see at least three sets of parents per grade level calling in the school board to demand we stick to the standard testing.
But hey, maybe someone who knows more about how the school district works can weigh in.🙂

I think it would be fairer if everyone took the exact same tests—and if they did, and if certain people inevitably managed to get their hands on them, well, God help their souls...

I remember back in my day, certain well-connected people used to slide into university spots through these shady little side channels. It was only when we implemented the centralized application and grading system based on standardized testing that those loopholes finally started closing. Giving universities the power to manage admissions entirely on their own is just asking for trouble; it’s essentially reopening the door to all those old, corrupt ways of doing things.
To give you a specific example—back when the internet was still a relatively new thing here in the States and hardly anyone was online yet—a close friend of mine was checking her college entrance results. She went to look at the published lists and saw her name sitting just below the cutoff line. I checked the website myself and saw a different list where she actually had higher scores and was safely above the line. I called her to let her know, and when she went to request a review of her exam scores, they gave her this "oops" excuse. They basically told her, "Oh, sorry! We just accidentally entered your points incorrectly, but don't worry, you're actually in!" Yeah, right... ☕

By all means, keep rooting for these decentralized, individual admissions processes. We'll just end up seeing the exact same thing happening again, if not worse, especially since the level of corruption in the country seems to have jumped to an entirely new level overnight.

Michelle Nelson4 said:I remember back in my day, certain well-connected people used to slide into university spots through these shady little side channels. It was only when we implemented the centralized application and grading system based on standardized testing that those loopholes finally started closing. Giving universities the power to manage admissions entirely on their own is just asking for trouble; it’s essentially reopening the door to all those old, corrupt ways of doing things.
To give you a specific example—back when the internet was still a relatively new thing here in the States and hardly anyone was online yet—a close friend of mine was checking her college entrance results. She went to look at the published lists and saw her name sitting just below the cutoff line. I checked the website myself and saw a different list where she actually had higher scores and was safely above the line. I called her to let her know, and when she went to request a review of her exam scores, they gave her this "oops" excuse. They basically told her, "Oh, sorry! We just accidentally entered your points incorrectly, but don't worry, you're actually in!" Yeah, right... ☕

By all means, keep rooting for these decentralized, individual admissions processes. We'll just end up seeing the exact same thing happening again, if not worse, especially since the level of corruption in the country seems to have jumped to an entirely new level overnight.

Personally, I'm glad medical schools have their own specific entrance exams🤷
so that we can be treated by high-quality doctors (assuming they don't all move to Dubai!) who actually stick to standards of excellence—standards that haven't completely fallen apart yet (besides, they struggle to fill their spots even though more people apply than there are openings).
My philosophy is simple: if you find the entrance exam too hard, you probably shouldn't be going to college anyway.

I'm all for individual entrance exams because I know exactly what kind of knowledge students from different universities are bringing to the table. I don't really have much insight into the schools outside of major cities like New York or Chicago.
But everyone acts like there's just one single national standardized test for everything.🤣

Michelle Nelson4 said:I remember back in my day, certain well-connected people used to slide into university spots through these shady little side channels. It was only when we implemented the centralized application and grading system based on standardized testing that those loopholes finally started closing. Giving universities the power to manage admissions entirely on their own is just asking for trouble; it’s essentially reopening the door to all those old, corrupt ways of doing things.
To give you a specific example—back when the internet was still a relatively new thing here in the States and hardly anyone was online yet—a close friend of mine was checking her college entrance results. She went to look at the published lists and saw her name sitting just below the cutoff line. I checked the website myself and saw a different list where she actually had higher scores and was safely above the line. I called her to let her know, and when she went to request a review of her exam scores, they gave her this "oops" excuse. They basically told her, "Oh, sorry! We just accidentally entered your points incorrectly, but don't worry, you're actually in!" Yeah, right... ☕

By all means, keep rooting for these decentralized, individual admissions processes. We'll just end up seeing the exact same thing happening again, if not worse, especially since the level of corruption in the country seems to have jumped to an entirely new level overnight.

Honestly, I don't think it ended—it just evolved.
Now we see points being awarded for health issues, divorce filings, or random competitions that don't even seem relevant to academics. The people who used to rely on old-school connections are now using insider influence to secure their spots 🤷

...all while riding the wave of grade inflation from elementary through high school.

The introduction of those 10 extra points won't actually change anything.

If the minimum threshold stays at 77—similar to how things work over at Tyco, for instance—there’s still no real way for students with a few mediocre grades from 5th through 8th grade to catch up, especially in core subjects.

That whole 5th-to-8th grade stretch remains just as stressful...

Susan James said:Honestly, I don't think it ended—it just evolved.
Now we see points being awarded for health issues, divorce filings, or random competitions that don't even seem relevant to academics. The people who used to rely on old-school connections are now using insider influence to secure their spots 🤷

...all while riding the wave of grade inflation from elementary through high school.

Everyone technically has the same shot at earning points or acing their SATs; after all, the admission requirements are public knowledge and available to anyone. But apparently, only the well-connected can "arrange" things so someone fakes a score on a college exam to push them above the cutoff line while some poor kid gets pushed out. Or they get a little whisper about what questions will be on the test. So, you can tell yourself that this way, only the "better" students are getting in 😁

Besides, regardless of how someone performed on their standardized tests, the actual quality of the students graduating from a university is ultimately the responsibility of the university itself.