I'm here to write a review disagreeing with what the majority of people have said. Most reviews I've read have stated that only the students with 3.8+ GPAs, 2200+ SATs, and many extracurriculars are happy at Lynbrook. Well, that's not true.
I am a student at Lynbrook with a 4.0 unweighted GPA and 2400 SAT score, and I currently hold leadership positions on my sports team and in a few clubs. And I am still completely miserable at this hellhole of a school. There is simply too much stress and pressure from everyone around me. My achievements are nothing of which I can be proud, because they are considered average at Lynbrook and, quite frankly, won't even help me much with college applications, because everybody else has similar accomplishments. At times I feel completely mediocre and incompetent compared to my classmates who win 1st place in the science fair, or become Intel semifinalists, or represent Lynbrook at yet another famous math or science competition.
When I talk to my peers, I feel as if they don't know me. The only things they know about me, and the only things that they see and care about, are my grades and my test scores, and they judge me based on those, and those alone. Everyone at Lynbrook is labeled by their "intelligence," and no one bothers getting to know their classmates for real, outside of their own small group of friends. In addition, the majority of people who have 3.8+ GPAs strut around the school, acting as if they are better than those who don't have the same grades as them. Most of my classmates don't realize that there are different kinds of intelligence. Who cares if you have a 1900 SAT score if you can obtain an athletic or art scholarship? Why does it matter that you get straight A's in AP Calculus if you can make a living off of musical talent? People at Lynbrook don't realize that grades aren't everything, and I highly doubt that any of my peers--other than perhaps three very very close friends--can say that they know the real me.
With the ever-present competition between students vying for the top spot in their class, come jealousy and bitterness between even the closest of friends. I personally found several of my friends talking about me behind my back, because they were envious of my test scores. I have also done my own share of back-talking for the exact same reason. It is unreasonable to say, "Well if they talk about you that way, then they're not your real friends!" because the back-talking happens all the time. It is simply inevitable and unavoidable, even between best friends. The competition and stress at Lynbrook tear friendships apart, making students even more miserable than they should be.
As overly-dramatic as it will sound, I also regret not having been able to live a normal teenage life. I do literally nothing with my life other than attend school, do homework, go to sports practices, study, eat, and sleep--actually, I take that back. I don't even have time to sleep. To be honest, I don't find the classes themselves particularly challenging. The reason I have no time to do anything other than study, is because I enrolled myself in too many AP classes, which assign exorbitant amounts of homework every night. Why did I take all these AP classes, you ask? Because that's what everyone else did. And that's what everyone else expected me to do as well. So I did it. To impress my peers, to impress colleges, to do what others labeled as "right" for me. What happened to hanging out with friends, doing something outrageous that will make a great memory later on, and just being happy with life? I go out with friends literally once or twice a year (during the summer), I have never been to a party or had a boyfriend/girlfriend, and I am by absolutely NO MEANS happy. In the past, I have contemplated suicide and even now, I go to bed wondering why I work so hard if it doesn't make me happy. Is this as good as life will ever get? Because if it is, then I see no point in living at all anymore. In my opinion, the purpose of life is to find happiness, and I most definitely have not and will not find it here at Lynbrook. So really, if I'm not happy, then what's the point of living?
I don't want to sound ungrateful, because the community here honestly is quite nice. There is an extremely low crime rate and almost no bullying or fights between students. But the pressure is really too much to handle, even for a "model student." Getting good grades doesn't make me happy. Being judged based on those grades doesn't make me happy. The stressful environment and constant pressure do not make me happy.
If you truly care about your child's happiness, ensure that s/he can actually handle mental and emotional stress before enrolling him/her at Lynbrook. And even if your child is absolutely brilliant and can get that coveted 4.0 and 2400, please reconsider. It is completely possible--even probable--that s/he will still be unhappy after obtaining those scores. read more