5 Highland Dr
Corning, NY 14830

I think overall this is a good school, with some excellent teachers. The main problem is that it's so big that it feels like your child is lost in the crowd. My child was in the IB Program. There is a lot of pressure for kids to do the full certificate program. In retrospect, I think the full program was a bad idea for us. It's a huge amount of work if you include CAS. The oversight of the program feels weak. Student progress doesn't seem to be tracked adequately which is stressful when your child is a procrastinator. Taking part in the program prohibited exploration of other topics because of time and scheduling. In the end, my child was still rejected, deferred or waitlisted by most of the selective schools he applied to, in spite of participation in extracurriculars, etc. You just have to weigh the stress vs the benefits obtained.

Though we love Carder for many reasons, we do feel it is a bit rigid for creative and outside-the-box students of a young age. It lacks diversity and is very testing-intensive. The Principal, Administrators, Support Staff and Teachers are top notch professionals and do seem to genuinely care about their students.