This is the type of question I receive if non Japanese people ask: “Are high schools in Japan like anime?” and the answer I give is: “no” since that’s not reflective of what actual school life is. Sure, there may be inspirations upon anime taking place at a school setting since all they portray is nothing but festivals, clubs and events as if the environment is that relaxing (far from the truth, JP school life in reality is regimented on studying).
In contrast, the same shit is said about US high schools via pop culture when shown to foreigners mainly portraying: teens hanging out in someone’s house partying with drinks, flexing who’s the most popular, jocks in sport, bullies picking the nerd, cheerleaders & football, 13 reasons why, high school musical, prom king & queen to list a few. However, is any of that representative of real high school life in the United States?
Yes, but often they are portraying the wealthy elite and large schools. Because this is where most of the people who are in Hollywood went to school… and that’s what they know.
No, to 99.999% of high schools, which are mostly boring, mediocre, and mundane. I went to a high school where there were no cliques, because it was only like 600 kids, and all of us were too poor to dress up as goths/preps/jocks/etc. I knew people who went to high schools with 10,000+ kids, and some who went to ones that were like 100 kids. The culture/experience of all these schools tend to be very very different.
High school is entirely a product of the state/city/geography of where you live. In rural areas some kids take like 1hr+ rides to schools, in the city they often walk to take the subway to school, etc. In major urban areas with lots , there are often specialized high schools (science, performing arts, trades, etc).
On the extremes, the small rural and huge urban schools there often isn’t sports teams and proms and all that stuff, but for most average schools, it exists but it’s not a big deal. Depends on the local culture. In Texas, for example, often high school football stadiums seat 10,000+ people… because Texas. Where I went to school nobody cared much about the football team, mostly because they were awful and almost always lost. But our soccer team and our marching band were ‘cool’ because they regularly won championships.
My college however, was very much like what you see on TV/Movies.