What Kind of Student Were You In High School?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Academically, I was in IB, and studied a lot. Ended up making a 1350 on the (old) SATs.

Personally, I was a class clown, loved to goof around, play videogames, do intramural sports, whatever. I occasionally would invite my IB friends over for study sessions but really we just played pool (the billiards table was literally 5 feet away from our study table). Good times, but still a tough run. IB was no joke, definitely paved the way for the tough pre-med life.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Thinking back on it now, I probably should've been more like how I was in high school in college. But that wouldn't have been any fun
 
Members don't see this ad :)
HS was very berry awesome and full of contradictions...

I had a fullride academic scholarship throughout HS and I did well on exams. I was also the class clown and I had countless visits to the Principal's office. I received a couple of suspensions and many detentions. I played a bunch of sports (b-ball, soccer, volley and tennis). My ECs included chasing after girls, skipping classes, underage driving and gambling (card games or dice). In my senior year I was elected as VP for student gov't and we organized parties at every opportunity :D:D.

HS was simply the best time of my life.... period!!
 
known as the smart kid.. still didn't have that good of a GPA since I never did HW..

huge SLACKER!!.. no EC's other thn the occassional visit to HOSA meetings...

teachers hated me since I aced my exams w/o putting in effort..lol

oh well, I was glad its over until I decided to be a doctor.. than I was like HS WAS HEAVEN!
 
Valedictorian, Varsity Cheerleader, Homecoming court, Yearbook editor. I was a total good-girl though. Never partied. Perfect teenager. If I could go back in time, I'd totally tell myself to have a little bit more fun because high school really isn't that important. I finally got the stick out of my ass in college though and am a lot more laid back now. :p
 
I dated the valedictorian.

That count?
 
I had liked the idea of being a studio musician when I grew up, so much of my first two years was focused more on playing guitar and listening to music than doing HW or studying. My GPA ended up showing that.

Any who I got serious sometime during my junior year while taking AP chem and really focused on school my senior year (I wanted to be a doctor, get into a school I liked etc.).
Most of the time I was that kid that played guitar and hung out with a lot of other guys who jammed or played in bands.

Pulled up the GPA a lot towards the end but I was a fairly average student in high school. B+ average when applying to colleges and an average SAT, I was in student government for a long time and had taken three AP sciences with several honors classes but that was quite typical at my school.
 
4.0+ gpa, 1900+ SAT (new), 2nd or 3rd in class, managed to come into college with 20 quarter units. Friends with some smart kids, we were pretty unique...people thought we were much more studious than we were. We actually spent a lot of time talking and would eat lunch in the library and watch movies instead of studying. Never really "partied" but had a TON of fun. Volleyball player for three years and softball for one year.
 
Kids have parties in high school? I had to be in bed by 10 pm when I was a frosh/soph and 10:30 as a jr/sr :laugh:

I was pretty chill in highschool; I was a slacker but I did all right as far as grades go. Very little sports as any sport that involves a circular/spherical object to participate means I won't perform well. I really liked track and field and excelled at it, but they didn't have that at my school. Oh well.
 
I studied, studied, studied... so I could get into an Ivy League school.

Then came college, and I partied more than studied. Plus, I became more in touch with my Asian side, since my school was much more diverse than my old public high school.

As I look back, I didn't really fit in with my school. Hence, I pored over books. I mean, that'll be like med school too, except the subjects and patients will be more interesting than AP Euro or Calculus.
 
I was a teacher's kid, and so I had to do well at everything (or die). 3.85ish GPA, 2100ish SAT. Lettered in golf and made all conference three years in a row. Yearbook staff, school paper editor, officer in a lot of clubs, blah blah blah. Then I went to college and got a life.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
2.4 GPA and a 20 or 21 on the ACT, can't remember which.
 
Last edited:
My grades were OK, but they could've been better. I was sick a lot. And admittedly, I ditched school a lot, because I didn't have any friends and I was lonely. And I hated how I was always treated like a little kid in high school, and had to adhere to stupid rules. But when I wasn't sick I was working ~25 hours a week, which got to be a little crazy when you throw in the EC's (a sport, band, a few clubs) on top of the workload. That, and I was pretty unmotivated. Most of the work in high school just made me mad because it felt like busy work. But despite all that, I managed to get some college credit and I was like 6 or 7 in the class, so I guess I turned out alright in the end.
 
In high school, I was as Type A as they come. I took as many AP classes as I could, did homework for hours each night (until I knew every annoying detail), and only made time for theatre, science club, and national honor society in my free time.

In college, I realized that I could do just as well with 1/100th of the effort, and that has been my mindset ever since. Now I study only when I have to, and I spread my free time broadly across as many of my interests as I can.

In retrospect, I think I would have gotten along with most medical students as a high schooler....now, not so much.
 
I had a SWG/EQ/EQ2/WoW problem in high school. I'm talking on the scale of 8-14 hours/day. One hand would be doing homework and the other hand would be working the mouse. I graduated with a 3.7, but I regret having wasted so much of my time.
 
I didn't party or anything, managed to get mostly A's without trying, and was pretty much the artsy English type (only AP class I took was English.) I didn't get into NHS because I was too lazy to turn the form in on time but was in like 3 other "societies." I was in band, choir, and drama club and that sucked up almost all of my time. I don't think I was too terribly nerdy though because music was a huge deal at our high school (our prom queen was in band...?) I hated math and science.

Haha, now I feel all nostalgic. How lame would I sound if I said I kind of missed high school?... :rolleyes:
 
I had mucho behavioral problems in HS, and I have a fairly high IQ so they would put it in AP classes to challenge me but I didn't like doing my work. I would ace the tests though.

I had a bad family situation and my grandfather who was supporting me financially in my senior year (I was emancipated and living on my own) passed away :(

I dropped out of HS with a .9 GPA. I got my GED though, did pretty well on my ACT and went to college and did just fine. I didn't realize I wanted to be a physician until I was 29.
 
My High school years were very up and down for me to say the least. Freshman & sophomore years i had a 3.8 GPA, was part of a few clubs and the honor society and played Varsity for soccer and basketball. Junior year i started working at our local supermarket, met a girl who moved away, and really was an overall awful year for me. Not a lot of sleep and my GPA for my junior year was 2.7, ouch i know. At the end of my Junior year i moved away from my parents house in Jersey all the way to florida to follow my love(hah). At the start of senior year i went to school for probably 3 months and dropped out (dumb i know). Almost 6 months after dropping out, i decided to finish HS and went to my community college since they had a program called "adult HS", which helped me get my things together and move foward. I graduated at age 18 1/2 with a lowly 3.02 after a strong start, but my 31 on my ACT really helped me. After that i applied for the same community college but for college credits this time, and finished my first semester with a 3.6 GPA. After that i applied to NYU and got accepted as a transfer student... and i guess that's where my story is at right now lol.
 
i somehow did a lot, but i don't know how. definitely a good student grade-wise, did all the IB courses, but i don't remember spending much time outside of class, except for english (slow reader, actually read the books). never partied, did track, a couple of choirs, hung out with friends most of the week and played in a rock band, which was definitely the thing that stole most of my interest and attention. i probably could have done better on those SAT's by studying, but i honestly did not give a ****, and hey i made it into my state school :D. all in all loved hs, made it through as a decent student without sacrificing any fun time.
 
Last edited:
I skipped class a lot. Graduated with a 2.6, which I wasn't even aware of until I dug through some old files looking for my immunization records, lol. 1500 on my SAT's though (the old ones):thumbup:
 
always did well in school without much effort, but I went to a conservative private high-school and me and my friends definitely .. rebelled against "the establishment" or whatever.. it was fun; i never graduated though. that period of time where you realize "i'm young, free, and alive; i can do anything in the world..." is magical. tryin to be a big boy in the real world @ 16 years old; crazy **** is gonna happen.
 
I was the smart/hot girl, the nerdy, over the top liberal who got all As and didn't date anyone. Valedictorian, president of like 4 clubs, Scholar Bowl team captain, debate/forensics tourny winner, national scholarship winning chick with a near perfect ACT score. And I had like 5 friends and was pretty shy haha. I hated high school. College has been amazing turn around for me. The waters are much bigger here and it's a lot less easy to stand out intellectually (although I hold my own for sure)....so I'm actually known now around campus as the sex ed girl. I moderate a semi infamous conference through our campus and am known to post some wild stories. Needless to say, my high school peers would be a bit surprised to meet me now!
 
what was i like in hs?


Mean_Girls_split_screen_telephone_calls.jpg



high school was awesome.

Hahah ditto! Up until senior year at least, then I started undergrad :cool:

Grade-wise ~3.75, didn't try too hard. No EC's besides sports, homecoming/prom princess. Quiet, but social.
When I told my mother I had decided to start college for my senior year her reaction was, "I will not support you missing out on your 'high school experience'." I could understand my friends not wanting me to, but a parent? Really? Nice support.
 
I was the student athlete type. 3 sports, captain of one. Valedictorian. Went to a private school...and then a bunch of other stuff. The sad thing is that I didn't study nearly as much in high school as I did now and I'll never even sniff my high school GPA in college. Oh well. College is a lot more fun/interesting.
 
A complete 180 from today...Geez how I sucked.
 
So what I've gained from this thread is that every other pre-med was high school valedictorian

It's not that hard to get A's in high school...

Actually, my weighted GPA was a lot more than the valedictorian's due to taking about 5 more AP classes than she did... but I had an A- somewhere... :rolleyes:

Really, it's just the equivalent of doing well in a single college class. I bet there's more students in a single science lecture at my college than there were seniors at my high school.
 
I was (and still am) pretty quiet and shy in high school. My grades were great when I was a freshman, but I ended up kinda skating through junior and senior year :cool: I took lots of AP classes but I was not the kind of student who worried over getting an 88 on a test or whatever. I didn't do EC's hardcore either, just a few things here and there. Too busy playing video games (also, still....)
 
A couple years ago, I had to get a copy of my HS transcript to apply for transfer from CC. I left school in 1991 and really didn't remember what I would see on the transcript. Five different schools in 9th and 10th grade. Dropped out in eleventh with a cumulative GPA of 1.8, which is much better than I would have guessed. I failed basic algebra three times. I have no idea why they kept putting me back in it.

As I recall, there was no way to flunk out of high school, because I rarely attended, never turned anything in, and generally failed tests, and yet somehow continued to advance. Well, I sure showed them.
 
In high school I never studied for anything, ever. I just hung out a lot with my friends, worked and played sports. I was very athletic so most of my EC's were sports and I wish I could keep playing them. I played soccer, softball (almost year round), and ran cross country. My friends and I always goofed off, we never took anything seriously. I snowboarded a lot of in the winters. Man was that the life. I only took 3 classes senior year so I was only in class from 11-1pm. I never really partied and drank much in high school though until St. Patrick's Day senior year. Been doing it ever since then though.

I graduated in the top 5% of my class with a GPA something like 4.07. I probably could have gone to a much more competitive school than the original college I went to...but when it came down to it I was just plain lazy so I only applied to a few schools.
 
Being valedictorian doesn't count for **** when you get into college.
 
I actually started hs in the IB program, but then some things went south and I ended up dropping out mid-way through my sophmore year. I joined the Navy at 17, did my time, now I go to a very well respected state school and am doing well. The only affect dropping out had on me was I had to start with college algebra instead of calc.
 
Being valedictorian doesn't count for **** when you get into college.

Um, okay. Just like great MCAT scores don't count for **** when you get to medical school, I guess.

Then again, my first year of college tuition was paid for under Texas state law because I was val of my class.
 
Being valedictorian doesn't count for **** when you get into college.

Ain't that the truth. And I was one of them. Everyone starts with a clean slate and you gotta deliver at the next level because no one cares what you did in high school.
 
Um, okay. Just like great MCAT scores don't count for **** when you get to medical school, I guess.

Then again, my first year of college tuition was paid for under Texas state law because I was val of my class.
I didn't say it didn't matter for getting into college. I meant nobody there will care or even know that you graduated first in the class. I bet nobody in med school would care that you got a 41 on your MCAT either.

You seriously only got one year of free tuition for busting your ass to be valedictorian? That's rough. I wasn't even close to being first and got offered a free ride from my state school. Not trying to be a jerk, just proving my point.
 
I didn't say it didn't matter for getting into college. I meant nobody there will care or even know that you graduated first in the class. I bet nobody in med school would care that you got a 41 on your MCAT either.

You seriously only got one year of free tuition for busting your ass to be valedictorian? That's rough. I wasn't even close to being first and got offered a free ride from my state school. Not trying to be a jerk, just proving my point.

A school granting you full scholarship is different from state statute saying, "Hey, here's what we can do no matter what any college offers." I had my own scholarships too. Not a full ride, but I still have zero undergrad debt, so that's kinda nice.

Agreed otherwise. Was just saying that there was something more than a pat on the back to be had from it.
 
High School was definitely a hard time for me. Freshman year I didn't give a crap about academics or even that fact that there were a lot of people less intelligent than me getting much better grades. I didn't really fit in anywhere because I was a little bit of everything. I hung out with a few jocks, a few drama kids, and a few of the studious kids. I'm glad High school turned out that way for me because I learned a lot from those people. Sophomore year I didn't give a crap about any of my classes until second semester, where I figured out that I was good at and liked math so I did well in that class and that's it. I dreamed of going to an ivy league school even though I grew up dirt poor and didn't really think it could happen (it didn't happen) so I signed up for 8 AP classes. Kind of took school a bit more seriously and did more work but still much much less than I should have been doing. Our class rankings came out and that's when my change started. Out of like 700 I was ranked 48, which I thought at the time was bad since I wanted to go to an Ivy. Then, the same day I was sitting in Chemistry and trying to explain acids and base problem to a friend of mine. The girl behind me was the valedictorian of our class and told me that I was doing it wrong and when I told her I was pretty sure I was right she said "Well, there's a reason you're not the valedictorian and I am." Oh yea, and I ended up being right about the problem I had been working on. This pretty much completed my transformation because after that I decided to do everything in my power to do the best I could from then on because I was tired of everyone always treating me like an idiot even though I wasn't. I knew for a fact that I was smarter than her and that if she could be valedictorian then so could I. I got 6.0's for the next 3 semesters. Finished High School with a 4.6 and 1460 (old sat) ranked 28th (my freshman year was literally all C's) and didn't apply to an ivy because I thought you had to be a genius with a 5.0 and 1600. I surprisingly got rejected from my state school and got a full ride at a small prestigious private school so I went there.

If I could go back, I would kick my ass and tell myself to work hard for what I wanted but I'm still glad I experienced that disappointment because it definitely helped me through college. I would also thank the Valedictorian because she ignited the fire in me to do my best but I don't know if she did that knowing I could do better or if she really thought I was an idiot.
 
I took a lot of Honours and AP courses, graduated top 10% in a science magnet program, and I was heavily involved in theater and loved working the renaissance festival.
 
"Chip on my shoulder" high school student. Placed into "regular", unweighted GPA courses as a freshman and got moved into accelerated tracks sophomore year and up. Good way to screw your class rank by getting As in unweighted classes that really count as Bs. Really helped motivate me for college to "prove myself", though, and I feel that I am a better student and person for it. Soccer + band + student activism took up the rest of my time.


Overall, college was still awesomer. :p
 
I studied a lot and volunteered a lot. Don't get me wrong. I truly enjoyed both activities. High school was easier than university. But, I can conclude that the things you learn in high school become the fundamental in college. Good time. Now, let's move on. :)
 
Unfortunately, I dropped out of high school 3 months in (I was 14). So yeah, was the worst kind of student.
 
Um... failed at it, basically. Spent all my time skipping class, barely ever showed up and was sent to the counselor's office a few times to get "therapy" for skipping school so much.

All and all... still managed to climb out with a 3.33 with some ECs (nothing spectacular, two summer jobs and a few clubs my friends led) 4 APs (Eng, Econ, Gov and Environ. Sci), though by golly I didn't pass the AP exam for half of them.

I dunno what my rep was, didn't have one since I was rarely ever in class.

Not an over-achiever and I only sunk myself a little. Luckily I already hit rock bottom in high school so I'm over it now that I'm in college.
 
I didn't understand this concept of "studying." I managed to do well... graduated in the top 10 of my class and scored 4s/5s on my AP exams, but high school was a joke academically. Actually, the AP program is a joke. Maybe it was just my experience, but I don't feel like I should've gotten credit for college-level classes when I did hardly any work.

I enjoyed high school. I pretty much just hung out with friends all the time and screwed around. Then again, I'm not going to a top-tier university. I'm guessing these two things are strongly correlated.
 
i just ran into an old teacher and told her i recently got into medical school. she literally could not stop laughing and it took me at least five minutes to convince her i was not joking.

that being said, high school was a joke. the only thing that got me through was sports and jazz band...
 
I can't believe how many people partied in high school. I always thought that only happened on TV shows. In my high school I was sure that the only people who drank/did drugs were the dirty-looking slacker/losers, and for the most part I think that was mostly true. The first time I got drunk was the summer after my senior year.

I was awesome at high school-1520 SAT, 4/5s on 6 AP tests, valedictorian, in every honor society, varsity tennis, math league, academic league, chess club (I'm really bad though so I only watched and hung out), spent my free time making websites, having sex, and baking banana bread. Good times.
 
Top