As a student of this school I can say that while some of the parts of this school are sub par it still provides a wide variety of opportunities in terms of sports and clubs. Yes, our sports teams rarely win, and no, our budget isn't nearly as large as those of many other schools. Yet I enjoy every second of my time spent on the football field with my friends, dominate as an individual on the wrestling team with spectacular coaching that I would be lucky to find at a college level, and have great academic opportunities including a wide range of AP classes with good teachers. The engineering department provides great opportunities in learning with programming, robotics, architectural engineering, electrical engineering, and woodshop classes all headed by my personal favorite teachers in the school. Further, I find that there is enough people in the school that a student can find plenty of peers with shared interests while also not feeling lost in a sea of people. I personally associate with multiple groups ranging from the athletes that I lift, tackle, and wrestle with to the kids that I play Magic the Gathering with after school on Tuesdays and the Dungeons and Dragons group that I find time for on Fridays.
So many people on this forum are complaining about budget related issues, the few teachers that aren't top notch because we can't pay for better, the lower quality lunch service that we love to complain about, the use of an address hall for a theater (that we still manage to sell out every show due to the great directors), but ConVal is truly a good place for a student who knows what they want to accomplish. There are opportunities abound that just need to be acted upon by the students if they want to accomplish their goals. AP classes to be taken, student leadership positions to show colleges leadership potential. This is a good school and I personally am finding great success here.