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The Specialized NYC High Schools seems to be like an "arms race" of education. The ones that get in have tutored class on the SHSAT and devote hours upon hours to homework (From what I understand Stuy students have like 3-4 hours of homework per night). The rest of the NYC high school population have shattered family lives and incompetant teachers.

Hiiii I want to go to Stuy soooo badly. I have pretty god grades..over 95 but my attendancy suckss!!!!! I have over 50 latnesses. Literllay over 50. Will stuy still accept me if I make the cut? Does Stuyvesant look at your grades and attendancy?????

I wholeheartedly agree with K's comments. Once I got into Stuy, it really wasn't all that difficult. My friend was attending Brooklyn Tech at the time, and his work load was disproportionately higher than mine. I mean, I worked hard for good grades, but comparatively he had to do all that and a lot more for some of his classes.

Mr. Phillips was my favorite teacher, I had him the whole first year. And I aced both courses. I do understand why some students hated him though.

Dude didn't teach.

He chatted with us and brought us bagels. Hey...that's a cool teacher in my book. Incidentally, whatever happened to him?

Overall, you had to work hard to keep up a good grade (90+), but not everyone was an uber-student or anything. Overall I had a great time though, fantastic liberal atmosphere.

As a '99 grad, I look back very fondly on my times at Stuy. There were truly life changing experiences - Mr. Krinsky's Humanities European History class was amazing, with Mr. Krinsky getting up on the teacher's desk and reciting Joyce... Mrs. Ubieta's AP Spanish classes, with their mix of rigor and fun and dancing and torta de santiago, have infected me with a Spanish bug I carry to this day, taking conversation classes at Instituto Cervates. There are good and bad teachers, but the good ones are amazing partly because they face such a talented student body. As long as there are people like Krinsky and Ubieta, Stuy will continue to be a beacon for public education.

stuyvesant - a curse and a blessing. i remember being told on the first day: "you are the best and the brightest. people will be holding doors for you." how's that for pressure on a freshman in high school?!
Many terrible/insane/bitter teachers, like any public high school; but many great ones too - Mrs. Avigdor, Ms. deBellis, Mr. Tiseo, Mr. Krinsky.....people who changed my life, really.
and then of course, the unparalleled strength of Stuy was the students. Creative, open, intense, insightful - many almost absurdly competitive kids, but many amazing ones too. I still have many dear dear friends from high school - and my boyfriend of 5 years is also an alum! (though we weren't there together)
In short, I'm happy for what I got from it; but I don't know if I'd go again, given the chance to do it over. A lot of damaging psychological moments, inflicted by insecure and overstressed teachers and administrators - I feel like the message was, "if you're not the best, you're no good"

I went to Stuy to escape from my neighborhhod in Brooklyn. It worked out. I had some good luck with my teachers, except in math. The teachers were awful, if you didn't have the correct inclination. Mr. Phil Fisher? A lunatic. Thought I was beyond help, but a few classmates tutored me and I would up with Regents exams all over 95. That said, I had great teachers in English and related....I was happy to leave.

Ken

I concur. Mr. Phillps was a nut. He utterly destroyed my ability to do math, and as a result I failed math the next semester. Failed!

Then, like a true Stuyvesant nerd, I swore revenge. I taught myself calculus over the summer and eventually became a 95+ calculus student, taking over seven years' worth of math during my time at Stuy, including electives. That Stuy has kids who do this, even in the face of nutty teachers, is what makes it Stuy. That, and we used to play chess without pieces, just with an empty chessboard, carrying on the game in our minds.

Do not forget extracurricular activities as a fourth option! I chose that and sleep.

As an alumnus, I think there is a certain myth to Stuyvesant. Sure, it's hard to get into, but once you're there, it's not that hard. There were many classes that were a sham. There were lazy/crazy teachers and the students knew how to take advantage of that. (Mr. Phillips anyone? Ms. Lorenzo?)

There definitely was competition, but there were also the students who knew how to get a good grade by avoiding hard legitimate work. Cheating was prevalent.

And did all students strive to get good grades? No, and I can count myself as one of those students, thanks to some inherent laziness on my part. (I hovered around in the deathly mid-80s range).

While I don't think all students were competitive, I do believe all Stuyvesant students were smart. We were artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, debaters, burnouts, writers and athletes. Not everyone was a calculus/physics nerd, and not everyone strived for excellent grades. In other words, we were a typical high school, but with kids who a little smarter than normal and showed intelligence in all different ways.