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School Loyalty Comes in All Sizes: Advantages Found in Classes Big or Small

Posted on: Monday, 5 June 2006, 12:01 CDT

By Ryan Loew, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Jun. 5--Shan Yan has been in some pretty big classes.

Granted, they were in China, but she remembers sharing grade-school classrooms with 50 other students.

That's why Yan, who moved to Columbus when she was 8 years old, is happy to be one of 159 seniors who graduated from Whitehall High School yesterday.

"I feel more comfortable in a smaller environment," the 18-year-old said.

Then there is Sarah Jane Dugger, who was just happy to graduate yesterday with 469 classmates from Upper Arlington High School. "You can choose who your friends are," she said. "With a smaller class, that's sometimes chosen for you."

Some students love being part of a big high-school class. Some cherish a more tightknit atmosphere. Both groups say there are ups and downs, and most wouldn't trade their experiences.

All kinds of options

When the 8:45 a.m. bell marks the end of first period at Upper Arlington, students flood the hallways.

As a crush of students rushed to get to class last week, Dugger and Cory Nyeste, both 18, sat on a bench and chatted with friends.

"Some kids are reckless," Dugger said, laughing about the sea of students flowing by. "I got rocked the other day -- there's just no mercy."

One advantage of a large school is the activities, Dugger and Nyeste said. For example, they could have spent their free time in the high school's Harry Potter Club.

Dugger opted for cheerleading; Nyeste went the lacrosse route.

Dugger also took three photography classes, and Nyeste studied computer animation and worked in the school broadcasting studio.

Class sizes at Arlington average 20 to 25 students, Nyeste said. Some are bigger. His American studies class, for example, had two teachers and about 35 students.

Outside class, students can participate in more than 30 varsity sports and about 100 student organizations.

"At a large high school, there are so many more opportunities for students to get involved and find their niche," said Upper Arlington Principal Kip Greenhill. "It's easy for students to fall between the cracks at a large high school; that's why we do the things we do."

Seniors say all these opportunities provide a chance to get to know other students. Still, at a large school, it's not easy.

"It's harder to meet 500 people," Nyeste said.

E veryb o dy kn o w s y o ur name

Andrew Milner joined 100 classmates who graduated from Grandview Heights High School yesterday.

Small class, small school. The 18-year-old said there are maybe 10 people he doesn't know in the entire school.

"Normally, what you see on TV is that seniors don't know the freshmen and that they feel like they're superior," he said. "That doesn't really happen at Grandview. We're a level playing field."

Students seem to do everything together in and out of school, he said. And teachers do more than just give homework, he said. They're coaches, tutors and neighbors.

"We've known each other our whole lives," he said. "It's very close-knit."

Taking the ne x t s tep

Cory Meier knows that going from a class of 159 at Whitehall High School to Ohio Dominican University this fall will be a bit of an adjustment.

"It's going to be weird because I'm going to have to meet a whole new group of people," Meier said.

Although he hopes the transition will be smooth, he said, he knows it won't be anything like high school.

How a student adjusts to college life is more about personality than high-school size, said Tonya Adams, a clinical counselor at Ohio State University. College freshmen, she said, should join clubs and talk to professors to make sure they don't feel isolated.

"You're making the (size) of the university small for yourself by making connections," Adams said. "Without that, you can get lost."

Nyeste, who will attend Ohio University, said he is ready.

And for him, the bigger the college, the better.

"I don't want to go to a school that was smaller than my high school," he said.

rloew@dispatch.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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