Good morning/afternoon/evening my good readers, Today we face the final review of well-known University High-school, which I know you have all been waiting for because of the significance of it. From the pristine art on the walls to the treacherous steep hills, there are many goods and bads to write about. To start, our arrival: "It's a school," one student explained to me, with not many strong feelings. Perhaps they didn't admire the money that went into creating this, what some people might call glorious, school? Or they had no idea of the danger ahead... We blew dandelions for a while, which were luckily in abundance. We hoped for good luck in our marching which we would perform in just an hour. Trees around the parking lot shaded us and added to the beautiful view, which was created with pink and blue contrasting colors and a tiny moon. This was especially cherished during the moment before we stepped onto the field, with a crow flying gracefully through the high sky. The most terrible element of our time at this school was the hill. This hill which brought immense struggle and buckets of sweat. With this addition to our problems the ending amount of stars could in no way be five or even four. Waiting for food was a different struggle, instead of something of the school fighting against us in our venture back to the buses (the hill), we were instead found with the pain of waiting. Signage was minimal and people were forced to yelling at others about where to go. "People aren't picking up their food," a person at a food stand told us. There also definitely should have been a sign towards the restrooms as well. Thank you for taking time out of your day to thoroughly read this review, ultimately making yourself more knowledgeable of the true marching band ways. Dearest, marching band pro performers read more

University High School - Sunset/ good view - Middle Schools & High Schools Near Me - Irvine, California

I would not recommend attending this school, especially if you come from a difficult or emotionally unstable home environment. In my experience, it was not an easy place to survive. Looking back, I believe I would have been happier at Woodbridge or Irvine High, where I likely could have earned higher grades and reduced the extreme stress of constantly studying until 3:00 AM while still feeling unable to keep up. Without tutoring or outside academic support, I often felt like I was on my own. There was very little individualized help available to bridge the gap between what students were expected to do and what was actually taught. When students needed concepts explained from the beginning, it sometimes felt like their questions were treated as frustrating rather than as a normal part of learning. If your main goal is maximizing your GPA and chances at highly selective colleges, I would carefully consider whether this environment is the right fit. Many students assume that attending a highly competitive school automatically provides an advantage in admissions, but a rigorous environment does not always lead to better outcomes if strict grading makes maintaining a strong GPA significantly harder. Students who might have earned mostly A's elsewhere may receive lower grades here. Another challenge was that students were often expected to perform advanced analysis without enough instruction. In English classes, we were sometimes expected to analyze entire literary works and identify themes, symbolism, and deeper meanings after limited explanation of the concepts. For students who had never been taught literary analysis before, it could feel like being asked to produce advanced work without first being given the foundation to succeed. While independent thinking is valuable, students still need guidance, examples, and support before being expected to analyze complex material at a high level. The expectation to "figure it out" with limited instruction made learning especially difficult for students adjusting to advanced academic English. This was also challenging for students from different educational backgrounds. Some students grew up in households where English was not the primary language, where parents could not help with English reading and writing, or where they had less exposure to English books and academic support growing up. Even bilingual students can struggle with advanced academic English because speaking a language does not always mean having the same comfort with complex writing and analysis. The combination of difficult coursework and the bell curve grading system sometimes made it feel like success depended heavily on prior exposure, outside support, or the ability to independently figure out advanced concepts. The environment could feel less like students were supported individually and more like they were competing against each other. Many teachers were very strict and unforgiving, with little understanding of challenges students faced outside of school. It often felt like the focus was on maintaining the bell curve and creating difficult exams, sometimes covering material beyond what was explicitly taught. Some students could feel overlooked or discouraged, while the highest-performing students received the most recognition. In my experience, some AP and Honors teachers were also unsupportive, and there were moments when students were embarrassed or called out in front of the class rather than being guided privately. There was very little patience for students who did not understand something the first time, and the pace often felt too fast for students who needed more explanation. There were also situations that felt unnecessarily humiliating. For example, there was a time when a teacher believed they had caught students cheating and angrily accused them in front of the entire class before fully confirming what happened. Even if there had been cheating, I believe it should have been handled privately and professionally rather than through public humiliation. In a high-pressure environment where students compete for grades, public accusations can have lasting effects because classmates may form judgments without knowing the full story. For students dealing with difficult situations at home, asking for help was not always simple. It can be hard to open up when you are unsure whether others will understand or whether sharing personal struggles will actually lead to meaningful support. Some students may feel like they have to silently manage their challenges while still meeting the same academic expectations. The one positive I took away was that the school pushed me to develop strong critical-thinking skills. It taught me to analyze concepts from different perspectives, question assumptions, & think more deeply about ideas, which helped shape the way I view the world and approach complex topics later in life. However, the emotional cost and stress were not worth the practical benefits. read more

Just graduated from another high school, and I just wanna say bad, they will never help you on anything you are struggling with in that pathetic high school. To this point I was there for 3 years of before senior year, and I was completely abused from all those years before transferring high school. I was going nothing but torture, teachers were so bad especially math teachers not giving a support to me when I am struggling with math. Specials expected you to just move on with your issues without caring your mental stability. Let me give one unbelievable thing one teacher said to me which you will not believe of how this is even good advice, One teacher named Leo Maldonado just give me this advice over going through problems and how the campus treats you stupid, "You don't have to tell your parents anything" not even giving the principals information of any stress I was going through also as time moves he talks to me horribly, and treats me like crap, I hope he gets fired. at least some teachers understand my emotions when I am determined, that was at least one good thing some good actual teachers. Bullying is a lot in that school, and the school does not ever help you, for my experience, I fought, hurt threaten, a lot of people to stop bullying, which brings to a fact that every report you filed will never change anything and it will be the same. The most unbelievable issue I have deal with is a aid in a classroom named smacked my shoulder over me talking trash about another aid who didn't even help and made me fail Algebra. not even assault me, but also talk crap about not knowing what I am going through. The last issue I think that was completely disgusting is that counselors and aids have horrible physical behavior and act mostly like perverts. one counselor, and one aid thinks it's normal to touch my armpits showing support which made me real uncomfortable. Their names were Nathan O' Leary, and Ryan Leal. That is what I have experienced in that high school real torture. I hope any parent/ Guardian or Student will see this review, because this is student's experience who used to go to that school. This school is not-supportive, not caring, never helpful, garbage people, and will make you purposely fail your education. If I were you newcomers out there, I would go to a better high school with much better support, treating, and better education. Absolute piece of crap. read more

Unless your student is a top performer, the teachers and administrators at this school will do everything in their power to push them down and out. My child was treated like a criminal for being average at Uni. After changing to an excellent, caring school in SVUSD, my child has all As. Don't let Uni ruin your child's sense of self worth. read more

Mr. Kessler is a horrible, abusive teacher. Many of the teachers here are terrible, but he really takes the cake with his yelling, blind rage, prejudice, and biases. I suffered from ptsd for several years after taking his class. Worst teacher I've ever had. The school in general puts too much pressure on students and mental health was not taken seriously at all. At times it felt like if you weren't the best, you were worthless. read more

The only thing of value about this institution is its name University High school. Here are the problems 1. Dropping & picking up is problematic 2. Students get little to no attention for their needs of athletic activities 3. Per records office, they box and then after a while shred students records. Obviously they don't keep any digital copies of their students records! 4. IEP meetings with parents are spent expeditiously. Overall, I would have looked elsewhere had I known the facts about this school. read more

So yesterday was the event for the freshman my kid is a freshman and today was registration day love the staff and some of the students who our not mean and helpful to the students but today my kid friend who is starting as a freshman as well a kid from water polo at the booths they had out there and ask him did he won't to sign up and started yelling and cursing at him cause he don't won't to sign up... a student who is a higher grade with a Shaved head white kid so I told him as a mom cause I seen him yelling at another kid you shouldn't do that to students he apologize and walked away and said another curse word towards me behind my back after he apologize so I hope everything goes well at this school because I'm not tolerating no bullying going on towards my kid ... read more

Me and me wife recently enrolled our daughter here and we love it. There was a minor incident at the start, but honeslty we kind of over exageratted the hole thing. I love the staff here and the families. Would recomend to people who moved here read more

Kids look dedicated and the campus is first rate. The campus and surroundings are very very supportive to the entire community during these times. We intend to have our boys go through this school for their High School education. read more

I WILL BE REVIEWING OUR SCHOOL'S CAFETERIA CONGRATS OUR SCHOOL IS RANKED 8th IN THE NATION! HOWEVER, THE FOOD HERE CAN BE RANKED 8th FROM BEHIND! Elementary School cafeteria food to middle school cafeteria food was a big step forward. No more do we have to wait until Friday's to order pizza, middle school had a larger variety of food, beverages, and even ice cream! Not to say that the quality of food improved, it was still somewhat nasty, but it was nevertheless a HUGE LEAP forward. However, this is not the case for University High School. Although Uni does have more choices for food, the selections they added were inedible, and I feel that the food is less healthy. Fries were soggy and oddly colored, chick fil-a had an odd scent to it, their combo meals looked hideous, and the pizza was inconsistent. On the upside, the lunch ladies were moderately friendly and most of them were smiling and did not seem to absolutely loathe their jobs. BATHROOM REVIEWS: i don't know why im doing this for my school, but I think it's a good habit to put bathroom reviews for all my food-related reviews. The 200s bathroom is clean, plenty of stalls, automatic pissing stalls with dividers, and adequate amount of mirrors. The soap is very rough on the skin despite being water diluted. 300s bathroom is less clean but acceptable, pissing stalls have no dividers, a pooping stall doesnt have a door, and plenty of vandalism. More sewage issues and inadequate amount of mirrors for the self-conscious high schooler. 500s bathroom, similar to the 200's bathroom except more dark. Heard the administrators are reworking the schedule next year so hopefully we can have more time to walk/drive to somewhere else to eat read more

How do I sum-up 4 years of my life in a single review. Overall, this high school was tough, very tough. Your child doesn't have to go through Uni to get into a great university. If they get the same gpa at Woodbridge, they're getting into the same schools. Unfortunately, getting a very high gpa at uni for 4 years is no easy task. In fact, going to Woodbridge, and maintaining a higher gpa means acceptance into better university's. And yes I took a summer course at Woodbridge, and it was like piece-of-cake heaven. Looking back I will make a bold statement and say I think the graduates at Woodbridge overall from my friends didn't have as good an outcome as myself and my peers; I have no idea why that would be. But if your a good student you will be a good student anywhere. But I really wish Uni would have filtered their professors better..I had a few really bad teachers and some amazing ones. Also, the biology curriculum here is very very weak; this is coming from someone graduating with A's in their biology department. I went into college not as prepared in biology as I should have been. Despite being a great public school, class sizes were large and learning wasn't reinforced with anything besides a 1 time test. Fresh and Soph. year are pretty easy-going. But when junior year comes around and counselor's are pressuring you to take 4 AP and honors courses, things start to change. They had very excellent teachers and some very bad teachers. Bad teachers: Ms. Parmalou- She is still teaching. Do not have your child take Ms. Parmalou's honors chemistry class! That teacher was very condescending. Super nice to other teachers/parents, and very mean to students. I once accidentally broke a .75 cent graduated cylinder, and the expression on her face made me want to cry. Honey, find a job that brings you peace. Literally I just earned my two bachelors and have been accepted into dental school; taken more units than anyone should, and can confidently say this was the worst teacher I ever had in my life. Mr. Ives- you are very nice, but people were constantly cheating in your AP European class. I wasn't one of them, which is prob. why I'm bitter now. But seriously do something about this. And the reason they were cheating was because you did not enforce the readings, thus everyone was very unprepared for your exams. I honestly learned nothing in this class. Mr. Wilson- they ended-up firing him the year after I took his Algebra 2 class. Thank you UNI for letting me be your guinea pig. I think every one knows what its like to get a bad math teacher you can't learn from... Some fantastic teachers: Ms. Natan- was the best! I want to add that all the Spanish teachers here were very enthusiastic about their jobs and taught well. Mr. Jerrako- LOVE! I was president of Girls' League and he did a fantastic job guiding us to organize winter formal to UNI. He was seriously the best, you could go to him for anything. Another huge suggestion I would give to students is step outside your box! You know that ceramics class, automobile emergency class, occupational program, and college units, all of which you don't have to do..well do it! For a number of reasons I can't fully list here those out of the box classes will be the one's most useful and memorable to you. And focus on your career, begin the pathway to your career in high school, trust me you will thank yourself later. For parents reading this, there was no obvious physical bullying that I saw. When I talk to people now they will share stories of getting physically bullied because they were overweight etc and I just never saw this here. And of course, there is drama and some random bad mouthing--but that's just life anywhere and you have to learn to hold your own somewhere in life. Overall, I saw UNI as taking the harder way in life with the same outcome, but it really depends on the perseverance of the student in subject. Most valuable lesson you can learn from high school or college--is to learn "how to learn." When you master this you can ace any subject that comes your way, even if you don't like it. read more

I went to this high school until 2010 and it was the best high school I ever attended. The academics here are TOP NOTCH. I went to a high school in Santa Ana before this one. Trust me-- Uni is the best. It's worth it to live in Irvine JUST to send your kids to this school. Even though your kid may not get as high of a GPA as they would in another school, they will come out more prepared and competitive for the real world in college. My college GPA is HIGHER than my high school one. That says something. Little Jimmy may get into UCI instead of UCLA but at UCI he will be the top of his class instead of in the middle of the pile. The teachers are ALL GOOD here. Yeah some have annoying personalities but they all do their job and will TEACH your kids. The best teachers I ever had here: Mrs. Natan/ Fox, Mrs. Raitt, Mrs. Ives, the tall blonde kind of heavyset pre calculus teacher who I forgot the name of, Mr. Chinn, and Mrs. Wallenrod. read more

This school IS as GOOD as it gets! I live in Irvine just so my children can attend schools like this one. I'm glad my son is attending UNI. I have heard this is a tough school and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and growing up in this world isn't a piece of cake. Preparation is the key to success! read more

The school is competitive, which I consider a good thing. Kids look to their peers and gets motivated to study harder. My son is 10 grade and so far likes most of his teachers. Am a little surprised to see reviews about drug use and will certainly talk to my son to stay away from them. There are a lot of clubs and other extra curricular sports and academic opportunities. Overall very happy with the experience. read more

In relation to education this is a good school. If you ever have a problem GOOD LUCK getting it resolved quickly. Assistant principals and staff seem unprepared & uneducated in how to handle conflict. read more

University high school is full of driven teenagers. Within all of my classes I see my peers collaboratively working with each other, driven to reach common goals. Teachers effectively supervise classrooms and through my experience the more advance classes tend to stay more focused. Overall university high has its fair share of enthusiastic staff excited to guide and educate it's students. read more

Where to begin... 25% of the teachers are awesome. Counselors are great (all of them). The rest of the staff needs to go back to school. Absolute worst high school experience ever. Food is garbage and the parking/traffic is crap. So happy I never have to be in or around this place anymore. If you are going here good luck, you need it. And if you feel pressured all the time, that's the only real goal of this school. No wonder most of the sports (atleast in my 4 years of hs) were doing so badly; everyone was concentrating on passing their exams and doing their homework, which is good but way too excessive in the amount they needed to do on a daily basis. Avoid going to this HS at ALL costs. read more