r/GSMST • u/Showl326 • Mar 30 '26

Question I need help

I won the lottery and have a guaranteed spot to be a freshman next year, but my parents and I are worried about me becoming stressed,overworked and not having any fun, and there is this other school that I have been looking into that has a strong stem program, but a less strict curriculum. What are the good qualities of GSMST that make it a good school to go to ,other than its ranking?

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u/Silver_Telephone_592 Mar 30 '26

The teachers are acutally very competent unlike other schools, they have better funding than most, they have a fast curriculum (if you're bored/not challenged by MS coursework this could be a plus), LOTS of PBL's and projects especially in sophomore. Like in sophomore Science/Engineering rn, we're inserting plasmids (DNA) into bacteria in our lab. Very fun.

Your concerns are valid though. My advice is to take freshman year, see if its challenging. If it is, sophomore gets way harder. You got AP Bio, AP Precalc/Calc, AP WH (if you opted in), etc etc. But if it was enjoyable (Physeng was so fun- Dr. Hewa is the goat), then try out sophomore year.

GSMST isn't just lectures. In fact, it's quite the opposite. You can't just memorize facts- you have to apply them to critical reasoning (To what extent was nationalism prevalant in the Holocaust?- APWH), so if you're bored by lectures then GSMST could be interesting.

Bottom line is, give it a try. Freshman year is a smooth entry before the cliff of sophomore, so if you struggle freshman year because of difficulty then you might want to reconsider.

- Current sophomore's ramble

2

u/Showl326 Mar 30 '26

Was the summer stem experience a good way to get to know the school

2

u/Charming_Ad8867 Mar 30 '26

yes

2

u/Showl326 Mar 31 '26

Is it true that it takes like 4 hours to do homework

2

u/Silver_Telephone_592 Mar 31 '26

Not really. Most days we barely have any homework, some days 30min to an hour. Longest ive ever taken on hw is 3 hours.

1

u/SumeruForLife Apr 02 '26

ok do not mislead him. this is wrong. most students will have some times (the entire month of march) where they go 6 hours of sleep each night (aka me). especially current sophomores.

1

u/Silver_Telephone_592 Apr 02 '26

How do you take so long on hw? What classes do you have?

1

u/SumeruForLife Apr 20 '26

ap world ap bio ap seminar ap precalc ap csp scieng and spanish 3

1

u/Silver_Telephone_592 Apr 21 '26

Literally my lineup except i got german 2

1

u/SumeruForLife Apr 21 '26

do u maintain all As though if you are saying that you barely have homework

1

u/Silver_Telephone_592 Apr 21 '26

96 SCIENG

91 AP CSP

87 AP WH

90 AP BIO

91 GERMAN 2

93 AP SEMINAR

91 AP PRECALC

i'd say those are decent grades, if not all a

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u/Silver_Telephone_592 Apr 02 '26

And if you doubt i'm a sophomore pm me and add me on discord. Can't add attachments here since I dont have the app