Are american high schools like how they are on TV and films?

[Ban my account ffs!]

Not like the movies.  People wore their letterman jackets around to show off all the patches they had (everything from sports to drama club to debate club to 4-H to academic patches for good grades... even weight lifting).

On game day the football guys would wear their jerseys and the girls would wear their cheerleading outfits on their various game days.

My school had the distinction of being fairly good sized (1800 students) but in a small town so we had the course options and extracurriculars of bigger schools but we weren't socioeconomically homogeneous like the Cake Eater schools that surround the Twin Cities like angel food cake in a bundt pan. 

[Frodo]

Cheerleaders didn't walk around like that all the time at my HS, but some days they would if they were practicing after school (or there was a game later on). A number of the jocks wore their jackets more often than not. I don't remember how many pep rallies we had a year though - at least a few. I didn't always go to them.

Knowing which films/tv shows you are thinking of would help because some overdo it or are straight up parodies while others may be based off of memories of a HS not representative of most.

I sincerely hope CrabCake doesn't have 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91oESPRinas

Awesome comedy though it was. 

[Figueira]

I went to a school. There were different groups and stuff but we generally didn't bother each other.

[Crumpets]

Cheerleaders didn't walk around like that all the time at my HS, but some days they would if they were practicing after school (or there was a game later on). A number of the jocks wore their jackets more often than not. I don't remember how many pep rallies we had a year though - at least a few. I didn't always go to them.

Knowing which films/tv shows you are thinking of would help because some overdo it or are straight up parodies while others may be based off of memories of a HS not representative of most.

I sincerely hope CrabCake doesn't have 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91oESPRinas

Awesome comedy though it was. 

Clearly Danger 5 is the most accurate representation of American high school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9HdRjD4eo

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Cheerleaders didn't walk around like that all the time at my HS, but some days they would if they were practicing after school (or there was a game later on). A number of the jocks wore their jackets more often than not. I don't remember how many pep rallies we had a year though - at least a few. I didn't always go to them.

Knowing which films/tv shows you are thinking of would help because some overdo it or are straight up parodies while others may be based off of memories of a HS not representative of most.

I sincerely hope CrabCake doesn't have 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91oESPRinas

Awesome comedy though it was. 

Clearly Danger 5 is the most accurate representation of American high school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9HdRjD4eo

Loved that show. They ever go beyond a second season?

[IceAgeComing]

I don't understand why you'd want to be in your sports kit all day if you had an evening game: like surely wherever you are going has changing rooms?  Hell; I've played in some terrible local Cricket clubs (my favourite was the one in the local park in a nice bit of Edinburgh near Murrayfield stadium where the changing rooms had their windows bricked up and the doors where about as easy to open as those in Fort Knox because it had been done over like five times in the ten years before) and they've all had somewhere to change - maybe not showers or toilets (the one above did, surprisingly) which is rather inconvenient, but at least a room where you can lock your stuff away while playing and where you can get changed.  Just the thought of playing sports in clothes that I'd worn all day and having to go home in them after... ugh.

I went to a comprehensive school although one that saw itself as posh because it got the best exam results in the area and it seems like its always had the trappings of the English-style public school (Houses, prefects, that sort of thing - the latter actually was a good thing for the years before I went because you had to do some duties but there was a room that only prefects were allowed to use for lunch which had some pretty nice stuff in it (a kettle and a microwave especially; really handy)... but the year before us trashed it so they didn't let us have it so we got all of the responsibilities but none of the advantages ("you can put it on your CV!!!": aye, sure; I'll put it on my CV next to my degree and European Parliament experience; sure that someone will hire me because I watched a few steps once a month)) but it wasn't really like Hogwarts: before third year it was a lot like those horrible schools you see charactarised in some British TV series where everyone is at war with each other, then they built a new school building and people seemed to calm down which really was quite remarkable.

[RINO Tom]

I will give my personal experience of my high school, which was in Iowa City.  It was about 70% White, 15% Black, 10% Asian and 5% Hispanic.  It had about 1,750 kids when I graduated (2010), now it's over 2,000.  Reguarly ranks as one of the best high schools in Iowa.  Public school.  Average ACT was 26 my senior year.

Anywho, the short answer is no, but those stereotypes also exist for a reason.  High school football and basketball games were certainly fun, and most everyone in the "cool" crowd (and most who weren't) went.  It was a social outing, and people would often do something after.  However, I think someone wearing his letterman jacket around might be kind of made fun of as being cliche.  People would regularly mock high school movie stereotypes, and we defied many (hardly anyone on the football team was overly popular, as they sucked, and our cheerleaders were DEFINITELY not up to stereotype, LOL), but at the same time, I can name one person who was "popular" who didn't play a sport.  It definitely helped your "status" as lame as that sounds.

I'd say the movies have it comically wrong, but those jokes (which are meant to be exaggerated often) are often based off of reality, haha.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Honestly is cheerleading still a thing? Ironically many of the stereotypical 80s cheerleaders types had girls in the mid 90s who are now the modern variation, the volleyball player. My school was like Cathcons, but our cheerleading squad was mostly made up of little girls in elementary/middle school who wanted to live the Disney Channel thing. Literally none of the High School students were involved-if we even had a High School cheerleading squad.

[Crumpets]

Cheerleaders didn't walk around like that all the time at my HS, but some days they would if they were practicing after school (or there was a game later on). A number of the jocks wore their jackets more often than not. I don't remember how many pep rallies we had a year though - at least a few. I didn't always go to them.

Knowing which films/tv shows you are thinking of would help because some overdo it or are straight up parodies while others may be based off of memories of a HS not representative of most.

I sincerely hope CrabCake doesn't have 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' in mind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91oESPRinas

Awesome comedy though it was.  

Clearly Danger 5 is the most accurate representation of American high school:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW9HdRjD4eo

Loved that show. They ever go beyond a second season?

Not yet, but there's something weird going on that they delayed production of both season 2 and now season 3 because of - and this is an exact quote from the network - "unforeseen international news events and the recent ISIS actions." So if we want more Danger 5, I guess we're just going to have to... Kill Al-Baghdadi! How appropriate.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

I will give my personal experience of my high school, which was in Iowa City.  It was about 70% White, 15% Black, 10% Asian and 5% Hispanic.  It had about 1,750 kids when I graduated (2010), now it's over 2,000.  Reguarly ranks as one of the best high schools in Iowa.  Public school.  Average ACT was 26 my senior year.

Anywho, the short answer is no, but those stereotypes also exist for a reason.  High school football and basketball games were certainly fun, and most everyone in the "cool" crowd (and most who weren't) went.  It was a social outing, and people would often do something after.  However, I think someone wearing his letterman jacket around might be kind of made fun of as being cliche.  People would regularly mock high school movie stereotypes, and we defied many (hardly anyone on the football team was overly popular, as they sucked, and our cheerleaders were DEFINITELY not up to stereotype, LOL), but at the same time, I can name one person who was "popular" who didn't play a sport.  It definitely helped your "status" as lame as that sounds.

I'd say the movies have it comically wrong, but those jokes (which are meant to be exaggerated often) are often based off of reality, haha.

I didn't realize Iowa considered itself ahead of style trends! I know New Jersey is one of the top states for high school football, but come on. I rarely met someone who didn't wear that everywhere! And I went to a cellar dweller in a middling league!

[RINO Tom]

I will give my personal experience of my high school, which was in Iowa City.  It was about 70% White, 15% Black, 10% Asian and 5% Hispanic.  It had about 1,750 kids when I graduated (2010), now it's over 2,000.  Reguarly ranks as one of the best high schools in Iowa.  Public school.  Average ACT was 26 my senior year.

Anywho, the short answer is no, but those stereotypes also exist for a reason.  High school football and basketball games were certainly fun, and most everyone in the "cool" crowd (and most who weren't) went.  It was a social outing, and people would often do something after.  However, I think someone wearing his letterman jacket around might be kind of made fun of as being cliche.  People would regularly mock high school movie stereotypes, and we defied many (hardly anyone on the football team was overly popular, as they sucked, and our cheerleaders were DEFINITELY not up to stereotype, LOL), but at the same time, I can name one person who was "popular" who didn't play a sport.  It definitely helped your "status" as lame as that sounds.

I'd say the movies have it comically wrong, but those jokes (which are meant to be exaggerated often) are often based off of reality, haha.

I didn't realize Iowa considered itself ahead of style trends! I know New Jersey is one of the top states for high school football, but come on. I rarely met someone who didn't wear that everywhere! And I went to a cellar dweller in a middling league!

LOL, I think growing up in a university town REALLY affected things ... most people from Iowa City thought of both of our high schools as just so much better than anywhere else in the state (not true, just relaying the feeling), except for maybe the wealthy Des Moines suburbs ones, but we were still "better" than them because they were more stereotypically White bread, suburban conservative, and we were this great center of the arts, blah, blah, blah.  LOL.