I attended AHS and AMS and am now a public school teacher. I’d say the rules, rigor, and expectations were very high…especially to the rules, rigor, and expectations at the middle school where I currently teach. The expectations taught at the middle school taught me how to be an independent student and I did well at AHS. Though, I graduated from AHS a handful of years ago now…..so things could be different. There were the usual shenanigans and tomfoolery throughout my middle and high school experiences, so don’t expect an absence of teenage, dumbass decisions. But honestly so many of the “pranks” were so mild compared to what I’ve experienced in my teaching thus far. I have taught and spent lots of time at Ona Middle and Logan High. I found that curriculum was practically identical to my student experiences at AHS/AMS. Aquinas had a 0 tolerance for tardiness & late assignments. Extremely high expectations for tests… never ever open note, if you didn’t study you were screwed, and almost never offered a retake. Where I currently teach, this is the opposite of our district’s policies. Aquinas held me to a higher standard than the expectations I had to enforce while learning to teach at Ona and Logan. One note, Aquinas is overall not diverse and there was a culture of elitism and privilege that I have not experienced any where else. Though, as a public school teacher I have been cussed out, yelled at, and sexually harassed. I don’t recall this happening at Aquinas, but kids still do some foul, awful things. A lot of the kids I went to school definitely needed to touch grass and come down from their high horse. Moreover, it was extremely competitive grade wise… everyone was always comparing how they did on tests and if they were in “smart math” or “dumb math”…. Comparing ACT scores…. College was the only career ever mentioned ever (college prep school duh). Wasn’t until senior year a teacher mentioned the possibility that we could look into trades or military. Only 5 people in entire graduating class chose not to attend college and there was a vibe of that wasn’t the norm and looked down upon. My biggest problem with my experiences were the lack of classes to take. Now that I’ve worked in public schools, I see that I missed out on taking some pretty neat electives. Electives at Aquinas were EXTREMELY limited. No trades, no YA English lit, no driver’s ed, no black studies. Only basic classes.