What I Would Do if I was Choosing a High School II

Laura, you failed at your job!

You told me that you'd email me telling me how I could improve on my posts, after every post. I, of course, offered to do the same for you. (No word on that, though...?) However, you have already failed in your duty. I'm disappointed.

Now, to the post! Where, I'm sad to say, I'm facing a dilemma. 

Although it's near impossible to tell due to my silky-smooth writing abilities, I have not yet entered that vast and foreboding world known as high school. However, the time has come to make a decision as to what school I want to attend. And I'm stumped.

Now, I'm sure that both Julia and Laura are freaking out at the moment, and are preparing their keyboards let their rage descend on me via the comments. Unfortunately, my wonderful sisters, it's true. I'm no longer sure that I want to go to your native high school of Ross Shepard.

Now, let me explain! I may very well still go to Shep. However, after seeing the open houses for both Shep and it's rival, Jasper Place, I must say that JP has also become an attractive option in my mind. I'll say it now, and not again; I'm sorry!

As you may know, I made an earlier post on this blog discussing which of those two schools I should go to. At that time, I'd just finished going to an "Information Night" on the options the two schools had for programs like IB and AP. To be honest, I prefered the JP night, simply because there were less people there, which made for a more personnal experience. Not to mention that they had better food after the presentation. At Shep, the only thing I can really say is that the presentation was mind-blowingly dull.

Still, the information nights are really just precursors to the much more inportant open houses. I went to these hoping they'd finalize my decision. In reality, they only muddled the waters more.

Before the open houses, I was still pretty sure that I wanted to go to Shep. Both of my sisters went there and liked it. It's nearer to my house. Besides, most of my friends are going there.

If we needed more good things to say about Shep, I've heard that it's ranked much higher academically then JP. They also did about five presentations at my junior high school to influence our decision, and made Shep look pretty good. I got to meet some of the teachers at those presentations, too, and they seemed very capable.

But then I went to the open houses.

I couldn't really say why- perhaps it was, again, because JP was less crowded. But JP's open house seemed, to me, much more friendly. Everyone was smiling. Everyone wanted to talk to you. JP exuded the message of "Come! Come!," seemingly without even trying. Shep tried to impress, with drumlines and shouting and "go to Shep" videos. The mood this created, however, was that of forced enthusiasm. JP impressed naturally. There was a buzz of school pride. Over at Shep, the people were too busy dishing out popcorn to really talk about their school. 

Perhaps that was one of the deciding factors, for me- Shep had very few studants that you could talk to, whereas in JP every classroom had somebody smiling and telling you about the school. Of course that's going to make the school seem more attractive.

As for the actual programs offered, from what I can tell JP is an athletics-based school when Shep is more academics-focused. I don't really care either way, as I assume that good grades in either school will get you places. No, what I really care about is the following. Get this; JP has days every couple weeks where they take a break from classes, and instead they are taught other skills by guest speakers. One girl was telling me that they learned how to properly write letters for job applications one day, which seems alot more useful to me then learning the square root of Pi. Or lack thereof.

And get this! You can take a creative writing course at JP. Does anyone you know want to learn more about creative writing?

So, overall, I was much more impressed by JP. And that's my dilemma. Shep is supposed to be better academically... should that influence my decison? And my sisters will kill me if I go to JP. I probably should consider that.

All in all, I almost wish I hadn't gone to the open houses. It's just made my decision harder. So tell me, internet... what am I going to do?

Thanks,

-Mark