Stevenson High School

This school is horrible. And I'm not talking about the teachers, for the most they're fine. It's the students. Stevenson high school is just filled with cliques. If you don't fit into the standards other students have then you're a weirdo and an outcast. There's no in between, you're either super popular or a loser. When I went to this school I was picked on for the stupidest things. And the sad part is that no one else will stick up for you. Consider another school.

Quality of academic programs: Stevenson offers a global education program, which is decent in that it introduces students to current events and pushes them to be interested in it, which is good. However, the class material outside of current events does not cover what the AP courses do and does not prepare them with the general knowledge they will be assumed to know in college. The career center, on the other hand, is a HORRIBLE program if you wish your student to get into any good University. Neither University of Michigan nor Michigan State ackowledge the program and still require the student to have taken all normal classes (which is impossible to do alongside the career center program). The counselors have failed to realize this even though they have been told by U of M and Michigan State representatives that the program hinders more than helps college-bound students and they continue to push the program. The couselors are the main problem if you wish your child to go to a good college upon graduation. They tell students that only one semester of language classes are needed(if they let them know any are needed) to get into a good school, when the majority of colleges in and out of Michigan require a minimum of two semesters. Check with the colleges your son/daughter might be interested and do not believe the counselors. They seem more interested in pushing Schoolcraft College down everyone's throat. Rather than push me to try to reach my goals, I was told that I should maybe take a year off or go to Schoolcraft because I shouldn't be too risky. Luckily, I didn't listen to a word they said and I did check the websites of the colleges whom I was interested in, but I know manyh students that got screwed out of a good academic future because of these counselors. I think the school must get paid by Schoolcraft to send kids there or something because what person in their right minds would tell a student that even though they got excepted into University of Michigan, they shouldn't take any risks and they should just go to Schoolcraft or take a year off? That is setting the child up for failure and stripping them of any self confidence they may have had. The school has very few AP classes compared to what other students that I went to college with had available to them in high school, and they do not push the accelerated program at all. They URGE students to take classes UNDER their capability so that their school looks better because more students have As or good GPAs. I don't know whether or not the other Livonia Public Schools are any better, but I would recommend looking into local private schools and ask what accelerated programs are available, even if you don't think your child is smart enough, because chances are if more positive options are offered to them and the less they are told they are only good enough for community college, the more ambition and motivation they will have. After coming from Livonia schools and on my way to Ivy League schools for graduate study, I recommend doing opposite of what the Livonia Public School system attempted to do to me and successfully did to many of my peers and help your child blossom and be a leader instead of a follower by looking into private schools in the area.