Kevin- You are talking about a number of different school choices. Then you say that a benefit would be an "environment that you really want". Is the environment the same in Francis Lewis as in Cardozo? In Bronx Science? In Stuyvesant? Do you get a lot of attention in TH? Do you think that you would get the same kind of attention in a lot larger school?
New people? Well, yes.
Do the other schools that you are considering offer Chinese or Korean?
You still have not mentioned your parent's opinion. What do they think?
Downsides- Francis Lewis has a grad rate of 70%. That is saying that 3 out of ten students will become dropouts. Is that the kind of environment that you want?
I believe that you are just starting to think through the differences in schools, and that you need to do a lot more thinking before you make a decision.
Thanks and I will think about it. Will give you a response very soon and thanks.
Giving up
Okay - maybe it's just a case of Dr. Fell. You know, the old rhyme
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell!
The reason why, I cannot tell,
But this I know, and know full well:
I do not like thee, Doctor Fell!
Just bad chemistry, maybe.
Basically, I just want to get out from Townsend and have a new experience. So, any school would be fine. I don't really care about individual attention so bigger school does not affect it. All of the schools have either Chinese or Korean or both. I have decided to drop Cardozo and Bronx Sience as my choices. The schools that are left are Stuy, Francis, and Tech.
At this point, I'd be interested (if I were you) in parental opinion.
Also - you're evidently college-bound (yay!) so I want to offer one suggestion/piece of advice, if I may.
Do whatever you can to (a) make good grades and (b) do your college requirements now, while you're still in High School.
The first is obvious - the better your grades, the better the college you'll get into, and the more collegiate choices you'll have. You'll be less likely to have to settle for wherever you can get in, versus where you really want to go.
The second is less obvious. When you place out of the language requirement, or you get a good enough mark in Advanced Placement English (so you get credit for and don't have to take Freshman Comp.), college becomes a very different experience. Rather than spending tuition money on basic stuff which is required of everyone, you get to spend it on specialized stuff which you want to take.
My brother and I both attended good colleges. I placed out of the language requirement, he did not. Hence, I didn't need to use any electives to take Spanish or whatever. My bro, though, wasted a lot of electives. First he took Russian and had a very hard time with it. It brought his GPA down, too. So he switched to German (what he'd taken in HS). I think he finally finished everything in the beginning of his senior year. I got to sail through college (well, at least in this area) without worrying about the foreign language requirement. For him, it was the constant Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.
All language instruction is good and I'm not trying to diminish it. Mainly, my suggestion is to take a language that you like and can do well in, because the collegiate language requirement is one area where your success in HS will directly translate (pardon the pun) into something you can use in college, even if it's to be able to take Botany or whatever, rather than French 101.
So these things matter. AP is good, too - I'm sure all of these schools offer AP classes, but naturally some teachers are more inspiring than others. My bro (same brother; I only have one) did well enough in the Calc AP test to get out of the first year of Calc. I did not (so you can kind of see our respective talents), and had to take Calc all over again in college. And AP is good because, unlike just getting out of the language requirement, it can act as a substitute for a class (or 2) in college. So you can save money that way, and even graduate early if that's what you'd like to do.
Hence, yes, the way you feel is important (and believe me, I don't want to pile the pressure on you, which I know happens a lot these days without me telling you anything), one consideration is the teaching skills of the language, AP and college prep staff. If the gym teacher is bad, well, suck it up and deal with it. It doesn't matter; gym, I'm sure, isn't going to be an issue in college. But if the AP Chem. teacher stinks where you are, and there's a better one elsewhere, that can be a consideration in your decision.
