High School choices - Stevenson and metra line (Chicago, Wheaton: environment, real estate)

[ebbe]

I might be moving to someplace on the metra line within commuting of Chicago (one hour or less I hope) and I need a top high school. Stevenson is an award winning school but can anyone tell me how this school really is, how they cope with being so huge. I'm coming from a much smaller school and everything in Illinois we've considered is 2 or 3 times the size and I have no idea how they can operate on such a large scale. Are classes huge at Stevenson? Anyone have experience with this school?

How much time will I have to add if I drive from Lincolnshire to the metra stop...I think the closest is in a town called Prairie (something). Is there sufficient parking for those who need to drive to the location?

[outsider1]

99% of its students love going there. It's not just the quality of education. This school aslo seems to instill good human qualities into its students.

The closest to Buffalo Grove station are Buffalo Grove(Lake county part that feeds to Stevenson) itself and Prairie View. The latter is more pricey. Look at the unincorporated Deerfield too west of Milwakee rd(route21).

From Lincolnshire add about 15 minutes on average. There are days when you'll need 8, but sometimes up to 25.

[karabiner]

Stevenson is a great school without question. I've known two kids that attended and both were "outsiders" (1 foreign exchange, and 1 soph transfer). Both were initially overwhelmed, but soon adapted to the size. I think the main challenge is the environment of the student body; it can be very competitive (which is good and bad). The parking lot is unbelieveable also (looks like a luxury car dealership)!

[destoria]

The average is size is 14 students per class

[SHSguy]

Originally Posted by destoria

The average is size is 14 students per class

Well first of all, I go to Stevenson, and i love it there, but there are not 14 students per class. Im sorry, that is the biggest lie you could put forth. I take seven classes a day and i have 23, 21, 25, 22, 65, 32, and 21 students in my classes. The 65 is band, which has over 300 members.
I might sound like a bad influence to your statement, but it really does not matter how many people are in each class, because the teachers are there to help before and after school, and even during lunch periods. If you cant find a teacher to help you, then there is always the two resource centers which are probably the biggest influence on many students for homework help. The bottom line though, is that each student receives more than enough attention, and grades are readily available to parents online if thats an issue. (personally, i am not much a fan of that, but it doesnt really matter because i get straight a's anyway)

[SHSguy]

oh, and some portions of vernon hills go to stevenson-the metra station in vernon hills is almost as close to stevenson as the one in BG

[SHSguy]

Man...i keep forgetting to say things

The prairie view metra does not have as much parking as the vernon hills one which just renovated its parking lot.

And the hugeness of the school is not an issue. I got used to the size in a couple days as a freshman. The more people at the school also means more people that can be your friends. Sure there are groups of students like the jocks, preps, and all those emos haha... but it just means that you can find a better group to fit into.

[Karla Butler]

We are looking at moving back to Chicago area....we are from Wheaton, but would like to explore northern suburbs since we have a summer home in Wisconsin. Our sophmore daughter is a good student and very creative. We are moving from a top Virginia school that has a class size of around 650. We are wanting as smooth a trasition as possible...any suggestions???

[reppin_the_847]

Stevenson HS is probably one of the top 2 public high schools in the Chicago area (and the entire state of Illinois). It is always duking it out in the rankings with New Trier HS which has its main campus in Winnetka (north suburban Cook County, about 13 miles closer to Chicago than Stevenson which is located in Lincolnshire). In any case, the Metra line that you are referring to is the "Metra North Central Service" line which runs between Chicago & Antioch, and as others stated has stops in towns such as Vernon Hills, Prairie View (a stop near Lincolnshire), Buffalo Grove, etc. It is the newest line out of the entire Metra system and it even has a stop by O'Hare Airport which is nice. However, for some reason this line also is one of the most infrequent Metra lines. In other words you have far less trains traveling back & forth on this line and this can be inconvenient if you need to come back from downtown Chicago at odd times. This line does not even run on weekends. So in short, if this line works for you, great! If not, I'd consider commuting to one of the stops along Metra's Milwaukee North line which runs between Chicago & Fox Lake. Depending on where in the Stevenson HS area you reside in, you can drive to one of these stops and ride the train to Chicago (Lake Forest stop, Deerfield stop, Lake-Cook stop). I will tell you right off the bat that the Deerfield stop and the Lake-Cook stops are probably pretty crowded. The Deerfield stop isn't too far from Buffalo Grove either. If you live closer to Lincolnshire you might be lucky enough to have an easy drive to the Lake Forest stop (really this is West Lake Forest), which usually has plenty of parking available. Their parking is also pricier ($3 a day), but I guess it's worth the huge availability of parking spaces at this particular station. The commute to Chicago from these stops will run from about 40-55 minutes typically depending on the stop and whether or not the train expresses and skips stops along the way. The Milwaukee North line between Chicago & Fox Lake is far more frequent than the North Central line between Chicago & Antioch. Both lines terminate at Union Station just west of the downtown Loop.

Out of the Stevenson suburbs you're going to be looking at some pretty pricey real estate, but this will definitely be worth it for anyone that gets to attend this high school. Lincolnshire is probably the most expensive town in the area, followed by Long Grove (huge, sprawling houses, land), parts of Kildeer that are in the district, some pricey parts of Buffalo Grove, then you have the Stevenson HS sections of Vernon Hills, and you have the cheaper parts of Buffalo Grove, I may have missed some towns, but I think that covers the majority). Good luck!

Originally Posted by ebbe

I might be moving to someplace on the metra line within commuting of Chicago (one hour or less I hope) and I need a top high school. Stevenson is an award winning school but can anyone tell me how this school really is, how they cope with being so huge. I'm coming from a much smaller school and everything in Illinois we've considered is 2 or 3 times the size and I have no idea how they can operate on such a large scale. Are classes huge at Stevenson? Anyone have experience with this school?

How much time will I have to add if I drive from Lincolnshire to the metra stop...I think the closest is in a town called Prairie (something). Is there sufficient parking for those who need to drive to the location?

[jdoby]

How would one go about searching the unincorpated Deerfield area. We are interested in Stevenson High also. Can you tell me if there is a lot of diversity there?