What are high schools like in the US?

[bladder23]

Well here in Ontario, Canada, theres these levels of courses:

Gifted/Enriched
Academic/ University
Applied/ College
Local Development

I'd imagine it's the same in the states?

 

[Nitemare]

we have 3
Gifted, Regular and below average(LD)

 

[tasmanian]

No similar but not the same. Theres regular classes. Advanced placement and excelerated. Theres also classes for the stupid people, such as study skills.

 

[Chronoshock]

In my high school there was curriculum 2, curriculum 1, honors, AP. All classes would have C2 and C1, some would have honors, some would have AP, and some would have both.

 

[shiner]

Depends on the school system.

When I was in school it was

Gifted
Accelerated
Normal(which really didn't have a name/designation)
Vo Tech
LD
Cheerleaders

 

[Farang]

At my high school you could start going to college, courtesy of the state, during your third year. So you graduate with an Associate's Degree, free.

 

[Saint Michael]

We had two at my high school:

Braindead and Brainless

 

[Nitemare]

Originally posted by: shinerburke
Depends on the school system.

When I was in school it was

Gifted
Accelerated
Normal(which really didn't have a name/designation)
Vo Tech
LD
Cheerleaders

Ours was kind of weird, we had 4 cheerleaders all in the top 10 and one was the Valedictorian, but you could replace them with the football team and be pretty accurate.

 

[Brainonska511]

Depends on the high school.

Mine was like this for most major classes (from "hardest" to easiest):
AP
Honors (sometimes only AP was offered)
Regular/Normal
Remedial/Lab Class

 

[Fenixgoon]

very much depends on the school.

 

[nageov3t]

I went to private school... for the "standards" -- english, foreign languages (spanish, italian, french, german, or greek, plus 3 years of mandatory latin) math, and science classes -- there were regular classes and honor classes (in the context of a public school, our regular classes would probably = their honor classes, and our honor classes would = their AP classes).

there were no levels for other classes (art, music, religion, electives).

by the time senior year hit, everyone was required to take 1 years worth of religion and english (you could do 2 english classes in the first half and none after christmas break, for example) and the rest of your schedule was purely electives, so our whole honors distinction was more or less over after junior year.

 

[BrownTown]

we had standard and honors\AP classes. Also though there were some clear distinctions between different "standard" courses such that if you wanted to have it easy you could and if you wanted harder classes you could take those too. So it was more like letting the underachieving people choose easier courses without having to label them anything bad.

 

[onlyCOpunk]

Aside from honours and AP there were nothing more then "regular" here. And really once they hand you the diploma it all becomes irrelevant.

 

[PrinceofWands]

One of the biggest distinctions between American schools and most other nations is that our 'gifted' programs are often merely academic achievers and not necessarily clinically 'gifted' kids. It's been a long standing problem here that doesn't show any signs of changing.

AP courses are supposed to be about academics as opposed to giftedness, but too often they're all used interchangeably.

 

[Colt45]

when i went to HS (canada) there was

honours/AP
normal
modified (for slow folk...)

 

[coldmeat]

When I was in high school in ontario, we had 2

Academic
Applied

if you didn't fit into either of these, then you had all of your classes in the same room with a bunch of teachers that spent all of their time with you.

 

[TuxDave]

Mine went along the lines of:

Gifted
Honors
Regular
Jocks

 

[TruePaige]

Our gifted program seemed to get it's funding cut every year, and so by Middle School I didn't get to do anything special over normal academic courses.

 

[WraithETC]

AP/IB(Like AP but a group predetermined classes + other outside class work) <> Running Start (Community College) Depends on the class
Honors (The only honors class was really english and that was for people who didn't enroll in IB)
Normal classes (ala stupid classes)
I'm just trying to graduate (retarded classes)

 

[Anubis]

in NY with its fucked up regents system we had

AP/honors - smart people
Regents - this was normal and not hard as all
non regents - basicially people with downs could get As here, yes some people failed this, most of the football team was here, i think they won 2 games my senior year LOL
BOCES - Vo Tec

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Anubis
in NY with its fucked up regents system we had

AP/honors - smart people
Regents - this was normal and not hard as all
non regents - basicially people with downs could get As here, yes some people failed this, most of the football team was here, i think they won 2 games my senior year LOL
BOCES - Vo Tec

I moved to NY my senior year of HS (2001-2002) and would agree. The BOCES stuff could be pretty interesting. The Regents makeup classes (you have to take the exams even if you move there your senior year) are something an average seventh grader should be able to pass. Good times.

 

[waffleironhead]

Ap
honors
regular(where I was)
Tho this was at a school where you were required to have 8 semseters of gym/pe to graduate, but only needed 6 sems of english and only 4 of math and science.

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
Ap
honors
regular(where I was)
Tho this was at a school where you were required to have 8 semseters of gym/pe to graduate, but only needed 6 sems of english and only 4 of math and science.

we had to take PE every term in HS as well, even if yo uplayed a Varsity sport didnt matter had to take it

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: tasmanian
No similar but not the same. Theres regular classes. Advanced placement and excelerated. Theres also classes for the stupid people, such as study skills.

we had regular, honored and AP. you had to take a "study skills" class. but it was just a free hour where you could do homework or read etc.

but i have notice different areas call it different names.


if you didn't fit in any of those you were "special ed" near the offices.

 

[trmiv]

When I was in school it was like this:

AP
Honors
College Prep
Normal
Continuation

You didn't have to be in all of the same level of classes either, except for continuation, which was technically a separate school at the back of our campus. So you could have AP English, and normal Math. Or Honors Science and normal English. etc.