What was your school (primary to high school) experience like, what made it good and special? Asking as someone not acquainted at all with the American school system!!
Sure! So schools in America are a bit weird - they're funded by local property taxes, so this creates a whole circle where higher property values mean more money for schools, which tends to mean better schools, which tends to lead to higher property values, etc. So I went to public (state) school my whole life, and these schools were considerably better than the local private (fee paying) schools. Generally, the only kids who went private in my area were from religious families.
I went to a small little elementary (kindergarten - 5th grade) school and in third grade I tested into an IQ-based gifted program where kids from all over the district were bussed in. This program lasted 3 years (3rd-5th grade) and was definitely the best part of my education - there were about 15 people per year and we finished the state mandated curriculum in a few weeks and spent the rest of the year studying whatever interested us as a class. We had units on things like crime and the judicial system that included a forensic investigation ended in a (actually very serious) trial (I was the prosecutor, obviously). We also spent a few weeks on bubbles where we learned a lot about surface tension, a stars and mythology unit where we studied stars scientifically but also learned about different constellation myths from around the world. One year, a kid got really into string theory so we all got into string theory. We were constantly doing odd things, encouraged to follow our whims, and very much allowed to be independent, quirky, and passionate. It was pretty much an ideal education environment and set me up to advocate for myself and my education for the rest of my life, because I knew how good it could be.
After that, I went off to middle school (grades 6-8) which was hell. Most people don't have fond memories of middle school but I really hated it - in comparison to the program I was coming from, it was authoritarian, boring, highly structured, and not at all challenging. So in 7th grade I threw a massive fit, contacted the gifted coordinator for the district, and got myself moved up a grade, meaning I went straight from 7th grade to highschool (this is how I started uni at 17).
And then last was highschool. Highschool was decent, not particularly special, but it was more challenging than middle school, we had more independence, and it allowed for more creative thinking. In American schools you do the core subjects (math, English, history, science, a language) for all four years of highschool, and at my school you can do them at four different levels: remedial, standard, advanced, and highly advanced (AP in later years).
I should mention that my highschool was a little over 3k kids, my year had around 850 so hence the huge amount of levels.
Some classes were easy and some quite hard, but overall the quantity of things we were learning (8 same classes every day, each with their own homework, tests, etc) meant that school was generally challenging enough. I petitioned out of lunch so I could do more classes, so I was always busy. Oh and the UK system doesn't match up well with the American one so I had to convince the school to let me take a lot of AP exams early, which meant I was with students the grade above (two years older than me).
On top of that, American colleges want you to volunteer, play a sport to a varsity level, have a job, be involved in extra curriculars, etc and you're preparing for the big college entrance exams too / applying for colleges in your senior year so it was really a lot, I was very busy. In comparison, I had so much time during uni.
So yeah, that's the explanation! Overall that program at the end of elementary school was the only particularly special part. It did set me up for the rest of my education though: I knew what good looked like and I refused to settle. Those three years + the three I spent at Cambridge were definitely the highlights of my academic life. Let me know if you have any questions!
