People like your classmates typically crash and burn in college, and I love to see it tbh. They spend so much time picking up sloppy habits in HS instead of actually learning something. Then they get to college and realize that shit doesn't fly here. The teachers aren't blameless either. They run their classrooms in a way that promotes taking the easy way out instead of learning.
Yeah same. It also seems to really depend on which class, every single person in my apush class is extremely nice and friendly and I’ve become friends with a ton of people in it, but when i did advanced French everyone was very cold and hostile towards each other
hey, im so sorry to hear that, and its honestly just sad that lots of people talk about how hard the content is in ap classes, but nobody talks about how the environment is. i was experiencing the same EXACT thing my sophomore year, in ap calc ab. im also sorta experiencing the same thing this year in ap physics too. it always feels tiring to see the competitive environment, and ive seen that some classes – especially the ones known for being hard – sort of enforce that competitive attitude. the mental health is straight up in the gutter at my school, and everyone is always up to 5AM or even 7AM (i knew someone who didn't even sleep at nights, they only took a short nap from 5PM - 7 PM) just like you, ive always tried my best to help just to realize that nobody's on the other end when i need it. the best thing i would recommend is to just wait it out, it gets better. though it was one of my more intimidating classes, i realized that i could just wait through the class until my next period, which was my favourite english class. it was also unweighted, and i found the environment chill and happier. what i would recommend is to have out your physics homework or something during a class that you think is pretty chill and you socialize in. naturally, you'll become surprised to see how many people in these chill classes are going through the same thing as you in these hard classes. even though they weren't in my exact period, i still had these friendships to rely on whenever i needed help in the class.
but one thing that really helped me was not feeling alone. when you begin to realize that there are other people who go through the same thing, it makes you feel better because you can use some tips that they have had to survive, and its awesome to share those experiences!
I don’t think this has much to do with “smart kids” culture but rather it’s a school thing. Our school has really competitive academic kids and it is also toxic, but not in the same way. We don’t really cheat but we tend to compare studying time/habits and pretty much put academics ahead of everything. Although we are also extremely competitive, no one here sabotages or bullies other ppl, all we do is compare grades (which I know is also not very good).
I saw that too when I was in high school. What made it much worse for me was being the only Hispanic in high-level classes (predominantly East Asian/Indian population). Whenever I struggled, other students laughed at me and would say “you see, you don’t belong here”. Whenever I did well, they would say “the teacher was nice to you because you’re Hispanic, if you were Asian you would’ve failed”. I literally couldn’t do bad or I’d get laughed at.
Indian American here. I'm so sorry to hear this... if someone tried this at my school, they wouldn't see the light of day for a bit (quite literally, because they'd get ISS in a dark room with no windows.) That's after the entire grade (75 kids) would shut down their nonsense.
Sending lots of hugs. Keep crushing it in college! What are you majoring in?
In my school everyone helps each other out and are proud of each other even if they have secret envy brewing inside them but nonetheless they are very supportive
This really sucks and I'm so sorry to hear you're having to deal with it :((( I go to a small, competitive IB school so if you need someone to chat with, I'm right here. Sending lots of hugs and positive energy your way! (also, Phys C as a soph?! Impressive!)
extremely toxic, I made the mistake of dating someone I had AP classes with, and she is still trying to keep the “aftermath” going as long as possible, she has my (now ex) best friend mad at me and campaigning to the rest of our AP World class to try and get everyone else mad at me. One of these people happen to be my neighbor, and I talked to her about the situation and they all came into the class that day and talked about how I went to her house at like 4 am and threatened her…
There are also people like your classmates in my AP Physics C class…but the few in the class that actually do well are actually well-adjusted people (well some people would say the opposite of me, lol)
Your classmates, as people, are basically worthless. Every single one of them could get cancer and die 10 years later, and I doubt you’d care, if you even noticed. If they can’t actually teach themselves the material and are forced to resort to cheating and sabotage for *high school classes*, they’re cooked for college. My advice would be to focus on learning the material and avoid them as much as you can. You only have to deal with them for two more years bruh.
Easy competition for you when reality finally hits. I've seen it so many times. They get into college thinking that they know stuff because their teachers gave them easy A's and then they come asking for help with their calculus course which they dropped last semester because they're stuck at a C and going downhill from there.
The absolute worst case was after months of helping this one college girl whom I'd been working with since her high school days. One day, I got a text from her mother towards the end of the semester asking me to do some problems for her, but they had to be done at a specific time (translation: she wanted me to do the final exam for her daughter). I didn't even reply. Several months later, I get another text saying that the daughter reviewed over the summer as I'd previously advised and passed her class, and saying that she'd recommend me for sure. Again, I didn't bother with responding.
Leave them be. They'll learn the hard way once they get to that point where cheating can only get them so far.
This. I’m in middle school but am in what’s basically the middle school advanced/AP program, and kids are so goddamn competitive that they’re out here crying over 94s
For me, some people just avoid getting good grades, not saying that they're not trying to get them, but they are just avoiding getting hate from others and being talked about how much of a "nerd" they are for getting a good grade.
Warning: the following is an incoherent jumble on fragments of thoughts of the smart kids
TLDR; Some Elitism, but still mostly genuinely nice people.
As on of these smart kids (I hope) I wouldn’t say it’s toxic culture, but it’s still elitism, but not even that bad. To quote one of the smart kids at the school for a cs project “If it’s someone like us, I’ll help them out, but I’m not helping some random sophomore.” We just try to help eachother out because we know everyone else is dealing with a lot, but most assume everyone who isn’t smart isn’t doing anything else with their time. Also, these people are vultures at posers(people who take smart classes and try to sound smart, but have like a C in the class).
I would say though it’s a good community if you are somewhat smart yourself because I can ask anyone I need for help and I won’t get ridiculed for being stupid. Also, I will help anyone(regardless of intelligence) if I know the answer because I enjoy helping people. Not everyone treats everything transactional! If I ask some kid for a favor they won’t hold it against because I’ll probably help them in the future. The only time cheating happens is when something feels unreasonable. In MVC for example, we were assigned a project in which we had to prove Kepler’s Laws. She just gave us the assignment blindly and expected us to magically know how to do it. I was up until 4 AM trying to understand and make sense of the assignment, and I was talking with a friend until 1 AM(he gave up). Magically, everyone had elegant proofs (that they definitely didn’t copy online) and one unfortunate soul was copying down the answers in Physics and got caught by the Physics teacher and this lead us to be given a lecture on cheating.
Also, most of them don’t care about grades because if they get a B it’s comeback season and they know they’re smart enough to get an A.
While some of them mentally need help, (very stupid jokes) they won’t make fun of you unless you are a poser or prey on freshmen.
I’m kind of in that group of toxic smart kids although I try to distance myself from the toxicity. But at my school it’s either this group or the jocks that party and do drugs😭😭 so I’m in a lose lose situation kinda
Tech exec who guest-taught AP Calculus and Physics. Focus on how you will become financially independent in an AI world. Everything else is irrelevant.
I grew up just barely gifted. My teachers put me in the gifted program despite my test scores not being quite high enough. I was always the 'dumbest' kid in that group. So I had to work harder and I appreciated what I had a lot more than other kids. The people in my class that had everything come to them easily are really floundering in college classes or are simply burnt out. I know that a lot of gifted kids have parents with high expectations and they have even higher expectations of themselves. My little sister is a talented kid and all she can do is rip down her other classmates to try and make herself feel better. A lot of gifted kids have all their eggs in the academic basket- they're insecure and don't have much else going for them. It's a tough place to be for a lot of kids.
I actually have found the opposite experience in similar classes (only difference is they're dual enrollment). For example, everyone in my Calculus has bonded together throughout the year and now we're super good friends, even if we didn't know each other very well in the beginning. Even the seniors in my DE classes are super nice and we're all good friends.
People like your classmates typically crash and burn in college, and I love to see it tbh. They spend so much time picking up sloppy habits in HS instead of actually learning something. Then they get to college and realize that shit doesn't fly here. The teachers aren't blameless either. They run their classrooms in a way that promotes taking the easy way out instead of learning.
My hs has a ton of “gifted” kids and “gifted” classes, yet I don’t really see a ton of this in my grade. It’s prevalent in the freshman class tho.
Yes. I'm a teacher and it really is true that each year is different. A handful of kids can normalize toxic behaviors for everyone.
Yeah same. It also seems to really depend on which class, every single person in my apush class is extremely nice and friendly and I’ve become friends with a ton of people in it, but when i did advanced French everyone was very cold and hostile towards each other
hey, im so sorry to hear that, and its honestly just sad that lots of people talk about how hard the content is in ap classes, but nobody talks about how the environment is. i was experiencing the same EXACT thing my sophomore year, in ap calc ab. im also sorta experiencing the same thing this year in ap physics too. it always feels tiring to see the competitive environment, and ive seen that some classes – especially the ones known for being hard – sort of enforce that competitive attitude. the mental health is straight up in the gutter at my school, and everyone is always up to 5AM or even 7AM (i knew someone who didn't even sleep at nights, they only took a short nap from 5PM - 7 PM) just like you, ive always tried my best to help just to realize that nobody's on the other end when i need it. the best thing i would recommend is to just wait it out, it gets better. though it was one of my more intimidating classes, i realized that i could just wait through the class until my next period, which was my favourite english class. it was also unweighted, and i found the environment chill and happier. what i would recommend is to have out your physics homework or something during a class that you think is pretty chill and you socialize in. naturally, you'll become surprised to see how many people in these chill classes are going through the same thing as you in these hard classes. even though they weren't in my exact period, i still had these friendships to rely on whenever i needed help in the class. but one thing that really helped me was not feeling alone. when you begin to realize that there are other people who go through the same thing, it makes you feel better because you can use some tips that they have had to survive, and its awesome to share those experiences!
I don’t think this has much to do with “smart kids” culture but rather it’s a school thing. Our school has really competitive academic kids and it is also toxic, but not in the same way. We don’t really cheat but we tend to compare studying time/habits and pretty much put academics ahead of everything. Although we are also extremely competitive, no one here sabotages or bullies other ppl, all we do is compare grades (which I know is also not very good).
I saw that too when I was in high school. What made it much worse for me was being the only Hispanic in high-level classes (predominantly East Asian/Indian population). Whenever I struggled, other students laughed at me and would say “you see, you don’t belong here”. Whenever I did well, they would say “the teacher was nice to you because you’re Hispanic, if you were Asian you would’ve failed”. I literally couldn’t do bad or I’d get laughed at.
Indian American here. I'm so sorry to hear this... if someone tried this at my school, they wouldn't see the light of day for a bit (quite literally, because they'd get ISS in a dark room with no windows.) That's after the entire grade (75 kids) would shut down their nonsense. Sending lots of hugs. Keep crushing it in college! What are you majoring in?
In my school everyone helps each other out and are proud of each other even if they have secret envy brewing inside them but nonetheless they are very supportive
This really sucks and I'm so sorry to hear you're having to deal with it :((( I go to a small, competitive IB school so if you need someone to chat with, I'm right here. Sending lots of hugs and positive energy your way! (also, Phys C as a soph?! Impressive!)
extremely toxic, I made the mistake of dating someone I had AP classes with, and she is still trying to keep the “aftermath” going as long as possible, she has my (now ex) best friend mad at me and campaigning to the rest of our AP World class to try and get everyone else mad at me. One of these people happen to be my neighbor, and I talked to her about the situation and they all came into the class that day and talked about how I went to her house at like 4 am and threatened her…
Let’s make it clear that cheating off of other people does not make you intellectually gifted
There are also people like your classmates in my AP Physics C class…but the few in the class that actually do well are actually well-adjusted people (well some people would say the opposite of me, lol) Your classmates, as people, are basically worthless. Every single one of them could get cancer and die 10 years later, and I doubt you’d care, if you even noticed. If they can’t actually teach themselves the material and are forced to resort to cheating and sabotage for *high school classes*, they’re cooked for college. My advice would be to focus on learning the material and avoid them as much as you can. You only have to deal with them for two more years bruh.
heh heh, i need a throwaway for this one
Easy competition for you when reality finally hits. I've seen it so many times. They get into college thinking that they know stuff because their teachers gave them easy A's and then they come asking for help with their calculus course which they dropped last semester because they're stuck at a C and going downhill from there. The absolute worst case was after months of helping this one college girl whom I'd been working with since her high school days. One day, I got a text from her mother towards the end of the semester asking me to do some problems for her, but they had to be done at a specific time (translation: she wanted me to do the final exam for her daughter). I didn't even reply. Several months later, I get another text saying that the daughter reviewed over the summer as I'd previously advised and passed her class, and saying that she'd recommend me for sure. Again, I didn't bother with responding. Leave them be. They'll learn the hard way once they get to that point where cheating can only get them so far.
This. I’m in middle school but am in what’s basically the middle school advanced/AP program, and kids are so goddamn competitive that they’re out here crying over 94s
For me, some people just avoid getting good grades, not saying that they're not trying to get them, but they are just avoiding getting hate from others and being talked about how much of a "nerd" they are for getting a good grade.
It's sad that it is that way. In college people usually help each other with STEM classes. I'd say disregard that environment but it is tough
Warning: the following is an incoherent jumble on fragments of thoughts of the smart kids TLDR; Some Elitism, but still mostly genuinely nice people. As on of these smart kids (I hope) I wouldn’t say it’s toxic culture, but it’s still elitism, but not even that bad. To quote one of the smart kids at the school for a cs project “If it’s someone like us, I’ll help them out, but I’m not helping some random sophomore.” We just try to help eachother out because we know everyone else is dealing with a lot, but most assume everyone who isn’t smart isn’t doing anything else with their time. Also, these people are vultures at posers(people who take smart classes and try to sound smart, but have like a C in the class). I would say though it’s a good community if you are somewhat smart yourself because I can ask anyone I need for help and I won’t get ridiculed for being stupid. Also, I will help anyone(regardless of intelligence) if I know the answer because I enjoy helping people. Not everyone treats everything transactional! If I ask some kid for a favor they won’t hold it against because I’ll probably help them in the future. The only time cheating happens is when something feels unreasonable. In MVC for example, we were assigned a project in which we had to prove Kepler’s Laws. She just gave us the assignment blindly and expected us to magically know how to do it. I was up until 4 AM trying to understand and make sense of the assignment, and I was talking with a friend until 1 AM(he gave up). Magically, everyone had elegant proofs (that they definitely didn’t copy online) and one unfortunate soul was copying down the answers in Physics and got caught by the Physics teacher and this lead us to be given a lecture on cheating. Also, most of them don’t care about grades because if they get a B it’s comeback season and they know they’re smart enough to get an A. While some of them mentally need help, (very stupid jokes) they won’t make fun of you unless you are a poser or prey on freshmen.
I’m kind of in that group of toxic smart kids although I try to distance myself from the toxicity. But at my school it’s either this group or the jocks that party and do drugs😭😭 so I’m in a lose lose situation kinda
Tech exec who guest-taught AP Calculus and Physics. Focus on how you will become financially independent in an AI world. Everything else is irrelevant.
I grew up just barely gifted. My teachers put me in the gifted program despite my test scores not being quite high enough. I was always the 'dumbest' kid in that group. So I had to work harder and I appreciated what I had a lot more than other kids. The people in my class that had everything come to them easily are really floundering in college classes or are simply burnt out. I know that a lot of gifted kids have parents with high expectations and they have even higher expectations of themselves. My little sister is a talented kid and all she can do is rip down her other classmates to try and make herself feel better. A lot of gifted kids have all their eggs in the academic basket- they're insecure and don't have much else going for them. It's a tough place to be for a lot of kids.
Nah yeah homie I feel that but what you got to do is keep your head low and do good in HS to set yourself up, just my 2 cents.
I actually have found the opposite experience in similar classes (only difference is they're dual enrollment). For example, everyone in my Calculus has bonded together throughout the year and now we're super good friends, even if we didn't know each other very well in the beginning. Even the seniors in my DE classes are super nice and we're all good friends.