plano vs frisco vs allen isd MS/HS

[PISDstudent]

I'm a student at Plano West in all AP/Honors classes, so with hope I can give some help.

First off, regarding top 10%: for UT Austin now I think it is more like top 8.5%. As far as I'm aware of, for plano they do consider the nature of the competition when making admissions decisions. It won't be automatic, but it's definitely possible to get into UT if you have a good rank/grades even if you are not in top 8.5%. Many people go each year, so if you end up at UT, you will have a large number of people you already know with you.

As for my experiences, I am really happy at West with the AP program there. The competition is quite steep. Last year the school was rated by newsweek as 98th in the nation on factors that essentially measure competition. This is seen easily when you look at national merit numbers (//www.city-data.com/forum/dalla...08-2012-a.html over the last five years) . The competition, on the other hand, also gives a really great, intelligent student body to be with; there are so many incredible people from whom you can learn so much. I always enjoy reading the results of regional competitions (ie. Science fair, all region orch, etc...) and seeing how Plano dominates all of them. This year the best high school violinist in the state of Texas is a junior at West. For what it's worth, the senior high campuses are pretty nice.

This also allows for the school to offer a great assortment of AP classes found no where else. This year I'm taking AP Comparative Government and AP Art History (among others); many of my friends are taking AP Music Theory. You wouldn't have the opportunity to take many of these classes outside of Plano. Throughout the four years of high school, even after budget cuts, you'll have the opportunity to take every AP offered by college board (at least at Plano West and senior as of now) except for Japanese, Italian, and Latin, so long as enough people sign up for it, which is not normally a problem given the school size and competition. The teachers for the higher level classes have been, in my experience, great. Many times we've wondered why certain teachers are not doing higher-paying jobs than teaching us as they are so intelligent. It is not uncommon for teachers to serve on the committees that write AP curriculum. However, in my opinion, if you decide that AP/Honors is too challenging, Plano won't have much to offer, at least at the high school level. That being said, if you're willing to work hard in challenging classes, it is a great place to be.

[Gymbo68]

Originally Posted by Big G

Texas House Bill 588 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In practice, it's currently Top 7% or 8% to automatically get into UT, and it will probably be Top 9% for TAMU in the next couple of years.

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IMO, I'd rather have my kid go to a really competitive high school with high-performing peers and excellent teachers (and, as a result, miss out on the Top 10% status), than attend some school with a second-rate student body and teachers mailing it in (and attain Top 10% status, only to flunk out in college due to being ill-prepared). A smart kid is going to do well in life no matter what college he/she attends, even if it's not UT.

thank you for the link- going to take a look now....

[CREW747]

Do some research on Plano and Plano isd.There are many threads on here that discuss plano Isd and the city of Plano.If I were buying a house and looking for that specific school situation ,I would go with Frisco 100 percent over Plano.Allen High school is way to big in my opinion.I would see that as taking a gamble.The 4a high school model makes sense for many reasons.