Hunter College High School

Hunter College High School (Hunter High School) is one of the top high schools in New York City, rivaled by Stuyvesant High School, and the Bronx High School of Science. Hunter is administered by Hunter College, a division of CUNY, rather than the NYC Department of Education; there is no tuition fee and it is publically funded. Hunter sends a disproportionate percentage of students to top-flight colleges and universities. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hunter is currently the public high school that sends the most students to the top 3 Ivy League Schools of Harvard, Princeton, and Yale.

Perceptions

As with most high schools, Hunter is plagued by its own brand of biases, stereotypes and notions regarding faculty, the school, and students. The more popular stereotypes are listed below.

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• Faculty
• The Social Studies department is commonly considered by the student population to be "special," "weird," an impression reinforced by their uniform donning of witches' hats during Halloween.
• School
• The Freak Hall to the side of the 11th grade locker hallway, is said to be a space specially designated for "nerds" or "geeks", although the truth to this stereotype is widely debatable.
• The G.O. Office, on the other hand, is said to be specially designated for "cool students", in part because the majority of elected G.O. officials are considered "cool" and only let other "cool" students into the Office.
• The "jock" lockers, in the basement just outside the gymnasium, is a popular hangout after school.
• The Senior Lounge is said to be designated for those with nowhere better to be than the Senior Lounge, because of the general opinion that it is bland and uncomfortable.
• Students
• The majority of the student population considers themselves superior in intelligence to the students of rival NYC high-schoolers, which is indicative of an entrenched school pride.
• The relatively small annual budget of the school, combined with seemingly pervasive fund raising by the PTA, has given birth to the rumor that most of the necessary funding comes from the PTA. This belief was furthered when recent financial struggles increased the requested donation to the PTA from $40 to $365.
• Given its relative anonymity, Hunter students tend to resent rival high school Stuyvesant's "celebrity status," which they feel is unjustified and undeserved.

"Subcultures"

Arguably, Hunter features less distinctions between cliques or groups of friends due to its rather small population (in one view--others are of the opinion "that size means nothing and it is simply because they're all nerds without an antoganistic bone in ther bodies."). The "jocks" and "stoners" are also often academic-minded, ambitious students, and the "artsy" types are often one and the same as the "math club" types. Also, the lack of the usual high school fixtures such as a football team, homecoming king and queen or prom king and queen, arguably result in less "class divisions" within the Hunter community. However, some argue that the relative rigidity of cliques creates barriers between sections of the student body.

Related Topics:
Cliques - Jocks

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"Conflict"

One of the strangest attributes of the Hunter population is that violence is almost unheard of. Fights happen maybe once a month--and that's only if you count a couple stray punches a fight. Verbal harassment is also minimal. "Mature" may be an appropriate word to describe the students, but many think "nerds" is more ruthlessly apt.

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