High School Guide: Admissions, reviews, and advice

Not really, I don't think Waze realizes that cars parked on the shoulder are actually a problem 😁

Adam Diaz67 said:Which college? 😁

Actually, I get them—I mean, the professors at college. The curriculum assumes you're coming in with some background knowledge since that stuff is covered in high school. Not just in prep schools, but in four-year technical high schools too. I think there were even entrance exam questions on it. For a technical degree, there was quite a bit of math involved. In total, about 300 hours (Math 1 135, Math 2 105, Math 3B 60).

@Susan James
That NYC-Zabok line is great. From the west side to Zabok, it's maybe a 45-50 minute commute if you're lucky and there isn't construction. Sometimes it takes longer. And the connection from NYC to Sisak isn't exactly amazing either; it's about an hour ride. So you have the option of taking the Metro or taking Amtrak (though you have to trek to Penn Station first). If, say, you're going from NYC to Sisak for a class that starts at 8, you catch the train at 6:30, otherwise you don't get there until 7:30. Both our transit options for quality transport that are always reliable and on time 🙄

Sorry for being off-topic, but I feel like some people really don't realize how big the City of New York is, or how bad the transit can be.

I know Chicago like the back of my hand, and I almost always rely on public transit to get around.
I wrote:

Susan James said:I was actually trying to say that traveling by train (which, unfortunately, doesn't run often enough) can sometimes be faster from certain spots than taking the Metro within New York City.
For example, if a kid wants to become a web designer:

You have options in:
Chicago-Zabok-Sisak
Zabok
Sisak
Depending on which neighborhood you live in, getting to Zabok (say, from Gajnice or Beverly Hills) is definitely quicker than heading over to Zitnjak, or wherever—like going from New Chicago to Sisak.
And as for the trips in the other direction? It’s usually pretty quiet in the morning with nobody breathing down your neck, so you can actually sit back, read a book, or even grab a quick nap.

To start with, I didn't actually say you had to make it all the way to Grand Central Terminal. I was just asking which neighborhood you're in and what’s closest to you. Honestly, you could probably take the Amtrak to reach the Getaldica area too, but trying to catch a train from the suburban neighborhood in that direction early in the morning is always such a gamble.
I know quite a few kids who commute from their suburban neighborhoods out to Aurora for school. There’s been some talk lately about using the schools there as an alternative for students who might not end up pursuing web design in Chicago—apparently, the facilities there are actually better equipped than what they have in the city.
I’m fully aware that there just aren't enough trains running lately, and they feel way too infrequent. It’s such a shame because we're seeing the number of routes actually decrease simply because people claim they aren't being used—which I think is a real missed opportunity. In my opinion, rail is still the fastest and most cost-effective way to get around.

A huge chunk of the MTA service is just frustrating because the buses—and even some of the light rail lines—constantly get stuck in the mix with car traffic. It’s especially bad when drivers drift into the dedicated lanes; they end up slowing everything down, which throws the whole schedule off. 🤷

Taking the train east from Grand Central Terminal is a bit of a hassle since it doesn't really connect well with any MTA lines, unfortunately.

Adam Diaz67 said:Signed. Same here. I considered MIT or maybe studying under Isaac Newton, but I passed because I really didn't feel like trekking across town. On a Saturday morning when traffic is light, it’s a 45-minute bus ride. But during the weekday rush? If the subway or a bus gets stuck, that trip turns into over an hour one way. In the end, I just enrolled in the same local prep school that's only 15 minutes from my house. Instead of dragging myself out of bed at 6:00 AM, I can sleep until 7:15. And yeah, nobody dictated which school I had to go to either.

@Mart28

Yeah. You take the SATs. Some colleges require extra subjects, so if you didn't take them in high school, you're basically studying and testing on your own. For instance, if you want to move from, say, a technical high school to a major like Chemical Engineering, but you only took chemistry for one year, it’s going to be much harder than it is for someone coming from a traditional prep school—not just getting in, but surviving the coursework since you'll be missing foundational knowledge. I can give you an example from my own college experience. During freshman year, kids from tech or vocational high schools had a huge leg up in things like drafting or CAD because they’d already done it in class. Meanwhile, students from heavy math-focused prep schools had the edge in calculus and mechanics because some schools just don't cover derivatives and integrals thoroughly enough. By sophomore year, things usually even out. Theoretically, the system is set up so that someone with a cosmetology diploma who passes the equivalency exams could get into med school, or someone who never studied music could get into a conservatory. In practice, though, that rarely happens.

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how that works in practice; if the whole point of high school is to prepare you for university, then shouldn't the curriculum be structured to ensure those topics are covered? If they're planned, then skipping them properly feels unfair. I mean, if they aren't teaching integrals correctly, how are students supposed to handle things like the Hess normal form and stuff like that?
E: I see that some programs are starting from scratch with the material, and honestly, I'm glad to hear that med school applicants have to meet certain prerequisite requirements from their high school days.

Michelle Nelson4 said:It’s funny how things work out. Back home, there was always this underlying assumption that not everyone had tackled advanced math during high school, so everything basically had to be taught from the ground up. Personally, I think we actually had quite a few more math hours than most, though looking back, we definitely messed up during that first year—we weren't exactly sure if we had even signed up for the right math track since nobody really laid it all out for us! 😁 )

It was the exact same deal with math here, too. But then take something like AutoCAD... everyone just expected you to pick it up on your own. Like, nobody actually sat you down to teach it. I think we just got some random online course and were told "good luck, figure it out." Same goes for technical drawing, honestly. And I definitely wouldn't say kids coming out of vocational high schools were any better prepared (shoutout to the few exceptions, I guess)...

Terry Martinez10 said:It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how that works in practice; if the whole point of high school is to prepare you for university, then shouldn't the curriculum be structured to ensure those topics are covered? If they're planned, then skipping them properly feels unfair. I mean, if they aren't teaching integrals correctly, how are students supposed to handle things like the Hess normal form and stuff like that?
E: I see that some programs are starting from scratch with the material, and honestly, I'm glad to hear that med school applicants have to meet certain prerequisite requirements from their high school days.

Medical schools require more than just a high school diploma—they have entrance exams too. They want students to arrive with a solid foundation so they can actually build on it, which makes total sense to me.
It’s surprising that other programs don't demand the same thing.
But if a topic is officially part of the curriculum and the professor is assigned specific hours and pay for that course, they really should teach it exactly as it's laid out in the syllabus.
I imagine it's pretty exhausting when you're trying to lecture to students who are just staring at you blankly because they lack the necessary background knowledge.

Preparation for college varies quite a bit. It isn't just about what was covered in high school; it depends on how much effort the student put in, their memory, their interests, and even just which teacher they happened to have. Think about it: a school might have something in its official curriculum, but if they run out of time, they might skip it entirely. You could end up with a specialist who taught themselves everything on the side and passed the entrance exam, while a traditional student walks away thinking they mastered a subject just because it was in the handbook, even though they never actually saw the professor teach it...

That's why having those entrance exams is such a good idea.

rowdypanther12 said:Taking the train east from Grand Central Terminal is a bit of a hassle since it doesn't really connect well with any MTA lines, unfortunately.

A friend was just telling me about taking the train from the suburban neighborhood to Central Park (though I'm honestly not sure why they call that stop Central Park).
It’s about a 20-minute walk from the station to the actual park. Honestly, the walking part isn't even the issue—it's that there aren't enough trains running that route. You usually have to transfer, and at that point, it's actually faster to just take the 4 or the 9 from Grand Central and get there in about 20 minutes anyway.
Plus, the trains heading toward the main hub are pretty infrequent, and the overall East-West service is even sparser than that.

Hmm, that commuter train takes you all the way out toward Aurora, just past Long Village. 🤔
Plus, you can take that same line from the Sparrow area straight to Central Park, but it’s such a pain when you can't even get on at the Sparrow stop. Getting to the station from the suburban neighborhoods near the hills is also a bit of a struggle once you're off the train.

Michelle Nelson4 said:Faculty of Science

I just took a look at the FBI curriculum, and it looks like Math 1 covers derivatives and series, starting off with vectors and analytical geometry (basically a refresher on high school stuff). Then, in Math 2, they move into the fundamentals of integrals.

Honestly, if you weren't taught those topics previously, it really just suggests that someone didn't follow the standard academic track. It isn't right, and we shouldn't just assume it's "normal" or expected to know everything out of thin air.

Here are the links I found:

I’m pretty sure I’m going to dig up the syllabi for my old first-year courses now—things like linear algebra, mathematical analysis, and probability and statistics—just to see if the content matches what I studied back in the day. Those are the core essentials that have probably stayed the same for a hundred years anyway; they don't change all that much.

You might be looking at an outdated academic year.😁 Over the last 15 years, they've tweaked the math program a bit, mostly just rearranging when things are taught. Integral basics used to come after the second midterm. And honestly, it depends on the professor—whoever you happen to end up with. This one just expected you to have the basic foundation from high school, so she breezed through the basics to focus on the college-level material. I noticed the professors have changed too. Smith used to head that department, and his lectures were great. I don't see the issue with expecting some prerequisite knowledge that was also covered in the entrance exams. Just like pretty much any part of education in America, it really depends on which professor you get. If you get a good one, great; if you get a mediocre one, okay; if you get a bad one, you're in trouble. That goes all the way from elementary school to grad school. Anyway, mine was just mediocre. I'm just sharing my experience with one specific course and instructor. If you ask someone else from the same major who had the same class with a different professor, they'll probably have a different story.

Susan James said:I know Chicago like the back of my hand, and I almost always rely on public transit to get around.
I wrote:

To start with, I didn't actually say you had to make it all the way to Grand Central Terminal. I was just asking which neighborhood you're in and what’s closest to you. Honestly, you could probably take the Amtrak to reach the Getaldica area too, but trying to catch a train from the suburban neighborhood in that direction early in the morning is always such a gamble.
I know quite a few kids who commute from their suburban neighborhoods out to Aurora for school. There’s been some talk lately about using the schools there as an alternative for students who might not end up pursuing web design in Chicago—apparently, the facilities there are actually better equipped than what they have in the city.
I’m fully aware that there just aren't enough trains running lately, and they feel way too infrequent. It’s such a shame because we're seeing the number of routes actually decrease simply because people claim they aren't being used—which I think is a real missed opportunity. In my opinion, rail is still the fastest and most cost-effective way to get around.

A huge chunk of the MTA service is just frustrating because the buses—and even some of the light rail lines—constantly get stuck in the mix with car traffic. It’s especially bad when drivers drift into the dedicated lanes; they end up slowing everything down, which throws the whole schedule off. 🤷

I wasn't talking about you. I meant Fruit Punch, who’s out here praising the MTA. But just like you said, the MTA has its issues, especially when you're trying to juggle buses and subways. The train is great if you live nearby and it drops you off close enough. Like, a buddy from MIT living in Long Village would probably get to campus faster than a friend coming from Lake Michigan.

Buses get stuck in traffic, and then subways get backed up because cars are blocking the tracks, so there's not much you can do. I guess you just have to learn the schedule for the slow trains and maybe try leaving a bit earlier.

@Terry Martinez10

And look, maybe talk to people who actually work in schools. Not everyone manages to cover everything they're supposed to in the curriculum, or they don't get through it thoroughly enough for a bunch of different reasons. There's what's on paper (the curriculum), and then there's what actually happens in practice.

@Jacob Sullivan91

I remember my college crew—guys who came from Tesla, Ruder, and the technical school in Aurora. Everyone already knew technical drawing and AutoCAD from high school. Honestly, the exact same textbook my brother had in technical school was the one I used in college.

Sorry for going off-topic, I probably shouldn't get into college debates anymore; that's a whole other thread. Same goes for traffic. 😁

Susan James said:Medical schools require more than just a high school diploma—they have entrance exams too. They want students to arrive with a solid foundation so they can actually build on it, which makes total sense to me.
It’s surprising that other programs don't demand the same thing.
But if a topic is officially part of the curriculum and the professor is assigned specific hours and pay for that course, they really should teach it exactly as it's laid out in the syllabus.
I imagine it's pretty exhausting when you're trying to lecture to students who are just staring at you blankly because they lack the necessary background knowledge.

Preparation for college varies quite a bit. It isn't just about what was covered in high school; it depends on how much effort the student put in, their memory, their interests, and even just which teacher they happened to have. Think about it: a school might have something in its official curriculum, but if they run out of time, they might skip it entirely. You could end up with a specialist who taught themselves everything on the side and passed the entrance exam, while a traditional student walks away thinking they mastered a subject just because it was in the handbook, even though they never actually saw the professor teach it...

That's why having those entrance exams is such a good idea.

Every university should be requiring a strong prerequisite knowledge base. Of course, it ultimately comes down to the individual and their own capabilities, but a university can—and should—set certain standards... much like the medical school example you mentioned.
If someone hasn't even mastered the high school level (whether through formal schooling or self-study), what hope do they have once they hit college?
Similarly, high schools ought to be a bit more selective with their students to ensure everything actually gets covered and mastered, rather than letting struggling students hold back the entire group.

Terry Martinez10 said:Every university should be requiring a strong prerequisite knowledge base. Of course, it ultimately comes down to the individual and their own capabilities, but a university can—and should—set certain standards... much like the medical school example you mentioned.
If someone hasn't even mastered the high school level (whether through formal schooling or self-study), what hope do they have once they hit college?
Similarly, high schools ought to be a bit more selective with their students to ensure everything actually gets covered and mastered, rather than letting struggling students hold back the entire group.

And honestly, we saw an example of this with med school last year when there were still open spots during the fall semester because none of the applicants could pass the entrance exam. Personally, I think that's perfectly fine.

I mean, it’s definitely not ideal to have students coming out of top-tier prep schools who can't even pass the admissions test. The issue isn't that the test itself is too hard—since some people clearly passed it—but rather that some students didn't actually master their high school curriculum. And the kicker? The ones who didn't get in were supposed to be the honors students!

To really determine if the medical school entrance exam was handled fairly, we first need to look at whether
- they actually released a clear syllabus beforehand so everyone knew what to study
- how closely that material aligns with the standard high school curriculum for those specific subjects, and
- whether the actual exam ended up being what they claimed it would be in their announcements

rowdypanther12 said:Hmm, that commuter train takes you all the way out toward Aurora, just past Long Village. 🤔
Plus, you can take that same line from the Sparrow area straight to Central Park, but it’s such a pain when you can't even get on at the Sparrow stop. Getting to the station from the suburban neighborhoods near the hills is also a bit of a struggle once you're off the train.

Actually, you can't take the same one; you’ll have to transfer somewhere.

Harmonica to Long Village between 6-8 AM has exactly 3 trains.
Harmonica to Grand Central Terminal between 6-8 AM has 4 trains.
Aurora to Grand Central Terminal (between 6-8 AM) has 8 trains (that’s what you’re calling the commuter rail).
Aurora to Central Park (between 6-8 AM) has 3 trains.
Central Park to Grand Central Terminal between 6-8 AM has 6 trains.

Are you serious?! Every time I took the train, I was always heading out to Long Village or Aurora, so I never even noticed any other 😂

Good grief, they really are just idiots

rowdypanther12 said:Are you serious?! Every time I took the train, I was always heading out to Long Village or Aurora, so I never even noticed any other 😂

Good grief, they really are just idiots

And get this—I'm actually shocked;
I didn't even start taking the train until high school, then I used it pretty regularly through college. At one point, I even picked a job that was just a quick 25-minute commute by rail (and in the opposite direction, too!).
Now, those trains are practically non-existent.
They've totally cut back on these routes (I guess everyone just drives now, and if students or high schoolers can't make it, they just stay in their dorms)||
The connection between downtown and the outer suburbs isn't what it used to be (maybe there's one in the morning and evening, but that's it). It used to run every hour, which really helped thin out the crowds because it would pick up people from the outskirts before hitting the main hub, preventing the slower lines from getting packed at the local stations.
To top it all off, they cut the service between the suburbs and downtown right when those areas have grown so much (not to mention the newer developments nearby). What a joke.

I might be slightly off base here...
but if they actually ran more trains to the school districts, you could probably get to a neighboring city faster than you can walk across town to visit your brother.

Excuse me, but which generation of people is this...

Raised in Chicago (the suburbs), attended high school back in the 90s. My commute involved taking a bus to the depot, catching a train to downtown, then grabbing another bus or train up to Draskovićeva Street before walking down Šlosarova Street.
The catch was that when it snowed, the buses wouldn't even make it up the hills. We had to trek through the neighborhood via Slavica and cut through the park to get to school, sliding all over the ice and falling flat on our backs...
Over those four years, I could count on one hand how many times I was late for class (keep in mind we had early morning lectures starting at 7:10 AM).
Neither I nor my parents ever made a fuss about waking up early—I always made sure to eat a proper breakfast at home first.
I used my transit time—both ways—to study or catch up on reading assignments, rather than scrolling through TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat. By the time I got home, I’d finish dinner, knock out whatever homework was left, and then just kick my feet up and relax.

It’s not just some generational thing. Public transit is honestly getting worse every single year. The city keeps expanding in every direction, but besides those newer trams that actually hold fewer people and a few new buses, there hasn't been much real investment. Train service has been cut back. Buses have too. Even the trams depend on which line you're taking. I guess we haven't seen any real new lines opened since... well, maybe since the last administration? The last major extension was just connecting the neighborhood out to the suburbs. They’ve added more bus routes, but at the same time, the number of cars on the road has exploded, so those buses just get stuck in the same traffic. And don't even get me started on the constant construction and detours—you can't even find them on Google Maps half the time if you look.

I mean, looking at how much the number of cars on the road has exploded over the last thirty years—probably like five times more than before—it’s just massive. It really chokes everything up and slows down the flow of traffic, and honestly, it even ends up gumming up the works for public transit too.

Adam Diaz67 said:It’s not just some generational thing. Public transit is honestly getting worse every single year. The city keeps expanding in every direction, but besides those newer trams that actually hold fewer people and a few new buses, there hasn't been much real investment. Train service has been cut back. Buses have too. Even the trams depend on which line you're taking. I guess we haven't seen any real new lines opened since... well, maybe since the last administration? The last major extension was just connecting the neighborhood out to the suburbs. They’ve added more bus routes, but at the same time, the number of cars on the road has exploded, so those buses just get stuck in the same traffic. And don't even get me started on the constant construction and detours—you can't even find them on Google Maps half the time if you look.

A massive amount of people have moved in. So many people are flocking to the city for work or school, and the transit system just isn't keeping pace.
And it's actually getting even more crowded.
The main argument anyone uses when they buy a car is that public transit is unreliable. No matter how high gas prices climb, they’ll still choose to drive (I see plenty of people like that at my office).
There has been a slight increase in cyclists and scooter riders🙄 who tend to act more like kamikazes than actual commuters. I know quite a few high schoolers who bike to school, which I think is awesome (except when it's pouring rain or hitting extreme heat). Generally speaking, though, it's a great way to get to class.

Then, because the transit is so poor, everyone jumps in their cars, which clogs up the highways and makes everything even worse. We really need to rethink the tram layout—maybe shorten some lines or introduce more loops so that a delay in one direction doesn't cause a massive bottleneck in the other. Also, they really need to start cracking down on people driving in those dedicated bus lanes.

Henry Martinez2 said:Excuse me, but which generation of people is this...

Raised in Chicago (the suburbs), attended high school back in the 90s. My commute involved taking a bus to the depot, catching a train to downtown, then grabbing another bus or train up to Draskovićeva Street before walking down Šlosarova Street.
The catch was that when it snowed, the buses wouldn't even make it up the hills. We had to trek through the neighborhood via Slavica and cut through the park to get to school, sliding all over the ice and falling flat on our backs...
Over those four years, I could count on one hand how many times I was late for class (keep in mind we had early morning lectures starting at 7:10 AM).
Neither I nor my parents ever made a fuss about waking up early—I always made sure to eat a proper breakfast at home first.
I used my transit time—both ways—to study or catch up on reading assignments, rather than scrolling through TikTok, Instagram, or Snapchat. By the time I got home, I’d finish dinner, knock out whatever homework was left, and then just kick my feet up and relax.

That’s ancient history, totally incomparable to what Washington, D.C. is like today.

Susan James said:And get this—I'm actually shocked;
I didn't even start taking the train until high school, then I used it pretty regularly through college. At one point, I even picked a job that was just a quick 25-minute commute by rail (and in the opposite direction, too!).
Now, those trains are practically non-existent.
They've totally cut back on these routes (I guess everyone just drives now, and if students or high schoolers can't make it, they just stay in their dorms)||
The connection between downtown and the outer suburbs isn't what it used to be (maybe there's one in the morning and evening, but that's it). It used to run every hour, which really helped thin out the crowds because it would pick up people from the outskirts before hitting the main hub, preventing the slower lines from getting packed at the local stations.
To top it all off, they cut the service between the suburbs and downtown right when those areas have grown so much (not to mention the newer developments nearby). What a joke.

I might be slightly off base here...
but if they actually ran more trains to the school districts, you could probably get to a neighboring city faster than you can walk across town to visit your brother.

The wildest part for me is when people start fighting at the Brooklyn station just because they can't all squeeze onto the train, and then the doors won't even close because everyone is blocking them, so you just sit there for fifteen minutes waiting for some official to show up and fix things.

And I guess that constant standing around waiting for God-knows-what at West station for fifteen minutes is also pretty much a thing.

It's also a bit awkward when someone decides to end it all in the early morning hours, and then you're stuck waiting for the paramedics to arrive and take away the deceased and the traumatized conductor before you can actually move again.