City Honors School At Fosdick Masten Park

Posted: October 15, 2025

Decent quality academics. Somewhat stressful, but that's to be expected from an honors school. The problem is that bullies run the school and then when a student who is pushed to the brink fights back, the VICTIM is the one who gets in trouble from the administration. That's exactly what happened to me, and to this day, I still feel humiliated about the public way I was bullied then victimized further by the institution.

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: October 15, 2025

Posted: February 6, 2017

Posted: February 6, 2017

The school does not recognize nor offer classes for bright students who excel in math, science, technology or medicine.

Posted: February 6, 2017

Posted: February 6, 2017

Posted: February 6, 2017

Teachers count excused absences as inexcused, they are rude to the parents and students. Late work for excused reasons (illness/injury) is either not excepted or has a harsh late penalty. My child is petrified of missing a minute of class.
Not to mention that the band classes are extraneous (not a scheduled class) and the only way for students to earn band credit is to miss class or lunch. My child often goes without eating the entire day so he does not miss core classes. Unacceptable!

Posted: February 6, 2017

The amount of homework is excessive and impacts the ability of students to do anything else in the evenings and weekends.

Posted: February 6, 2017

It depends on what you are looking for. This is NOT the school for you if you are interested in Math, Technology and Science (STEM) or Business, Medical careers. This would be an excellent school for a student who has strengths in English or History. The school forces all 10th grade students to take AP English Comp and AP World History. The 11th and 12 grade curriculum offerings are very limited and pre-determined.
Before you make your decision to send your child here, take a look at the City Honors High School curriculum and compare it to what other honor schools across the country offer. Your child will be competing with them when applying to college. Additionally, many colleges don't recognize the IB courses for college credit.
Teachers and administration do not make decisions in the best interest of the students or the families. Parents feel very unwelcomed at the school outside of a school sponsored event. Teachers are rude to the students and use antiquated teacher-focused methodologies and classroom policies.
Finally, consider that the CHS grades are unusually and intentionally skewed to make the school seem "more rigorous". It's near impossible to earn an A average. For example, a B starts at 86 and an A starts at 95. My friend is a teacher at CHS and they were told to "limit the number of A's" in their classes. Seriously, if a student does A work, they deserve an appropriate grade. Try to explain lower GPAs when applying to college.

Posted: August 3, 2016

My mother in law told me am trying to get my kids in as we relocate from GA

Posted: January 16, 2016

This school does not develop integrity or honesty. Students frequently taunt and bully one another. I hate this school so much. The school is extremely unfair in the way it deals with its students.

Posted: January 16, 2016

Was bullied so badly at this school that I literally suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result.
The academics aren't even that good. People at this school think a 3 on the AP exam is good. In college, people from other, "normal" public schools across the country get straight 4s and 5s on them. Very little measurable learning takes place at this school.
It may be the best public school in Buffalo, but being the best of one of the country's worst school districts isn't saying much.

Posted: March 14, 2015

Excellent school. Ranked top 10 to top 25 nationally, year in and year out. Best in WNY and at the top of New York State rankings. All despite its place in a struggling district and having a third of its students at or below the poverty line. The administration, teachers, students, and parents are doing something right.

Posted: February 20, 2015

I must comment on the "teacher" who said this school does not represent the bps system. I completely disagree with the idea that technically to be a magnet school you must draw from bps students only. Everyone who lives in the city who pays property taxes has the right to test their child into this school regardless of where they went k-4. The admissions test is a logic test hardly something kids prepare for or learn more of at a private elementary school. The essay is based on an ela score which most private schools don't even teach to and the bps do. So I think the advantage is to bps students there! Besides that really comes down to literacy rates and parents being involved in kids life and reading to them. A student would not survive at chs without those skills. And if parents scrimp and save to put money into their kids k-4 learning they have that choice. It's their investment. City honors is the one public high school in buffalo which attracts people into moving or staying in the city - something buffalo desprately needs.

Posted: September 7, 2014

First of all, I am not a parent or a student but an educator. I highly disagree with the review that says " [City Honors] does a great job fulfilling its mission as the accelerated honors magnet for the City of Buffalo." Technically, magnets should be pulling FROM the public schools by identifying students in the BPS population and giving them an educational opportunity the would never otherwise have. In other words, if CHS was doing it's job, it would require a year of attendance to another BPS prior to application to CHS. This is not the case. Many middle class parents send their children to private school prior to applying to City Honors. If a private school educated 4th grader is testing alongside equally or even more intelligent, yet sadly much less well prepared, BPS students, guess who gets in? CHS attendance simply allows these well off families to save money to offer additional privileges to their children while the bright kids in the BPS who deserve this education will never get either! That is not the goal of a true city magnet at all! It's the goal of those invested in rankings. Very sad for the many bright children already in the BPS who deserve a place at CHS.

Posted: October 21, 2012

I hate this school with most fiery of passions. The academics were decent, but not superb as can be demonstrated by the fact that the pass rates for some regents exams are laughably low for an honors school. The student body creates a very hostile environment, and some of the teachers spread rumors and trash talk students. In fact, one time I saw a teacher spreading a malicious rumor about a student and asked him why the teacher did it, the response was, I kid you not, "To embarrass him [the student]." A lot of times, students behave with impunity and at other times, administration is arbitrarily stringent in enforcement of school rules. Since GreatSchools won't publish reviews that name students, teachers or staff, I will just say that some students had bullied and harassed another student for months on end and received no punishment for what they did. After graduating from this atrocious institution, I realized that high school literature courses killed my joy in reading. The mathematics department is nearly a joke. The sciences are particularly weak. Overall, terrible high school with a horrible environment. Wish I could go back in time and gone to a different high school.

Posted: February 9, 2012

City honors has thus far surpassed my expectations . I feel if my child takes advantage of what is being offered. She can achieve what ever she sets out to achieve. The decision is truely up to her. The bottom line for me is that she is being exposed and academically challeneged. The bulk of our public and even charter schools are lagging behind , I hate to say this, it pains me to say this , but there are high schools in our city that are nothing more then teenage waste lands. I base this on graduation rates and college acceptance percentages. As for my child this free ,public education , if nothing else has my child on the right track.

Posted: December 20, 2011

Honestly, the four years I have spent at City Honors for high school were the most miserable years of my life. It's been a couple of years since I graduated, and I still feel the sting of the bullying and harassment I suffered at the hands of peers, both those my age and even younger, and occasionally even teachers. I feel like I had so much more potential and could have succeeded to a larger extent in a less hostile environment. Instead, City Honors crushed my sense of self-worth and esteem. It got so bad that somedays I would just dread walking into school and felt lousy at the end of the day after an entire day's worth of ostracism and rude behavior from students. Academically, the school's pass rates on AP exams and some regents are laughably low for an "honors" school. The IB program is a scam, and does very little to prepare a student for college and earns the student almost zero credits anywhere. I do applaud the school for its socioeconomic diversity, but the student body is very racially segregated. Some teachers are pretty good (Jurich, Crane, Stephens, Roche, Franke, etc) but many are indeed washed out. Overall, my experience at this school was less than satisfactory.

Posted: November 17, 2011

I'm a freshman at Honors; it's my first year attending the school and I can honestly say it does not live up to any expectations. I came to Honors to be academically challenged and surrounded by peers with the same thrive for knowledge. I found out quite quickly that this simply is not the case. The students are not as gifted as many seem to think; one of my peers stated that when the Earth goes behind the Sun, the Sun casts a shadow on the Earth. Many of them simply arrive at Honors in fifth grade and lose all thrive for a higher education within a few months. Also, while some teachers are truly fantastic, many are quite the opposite. The coursework is mediocre at best; I've put minimal effort into all of my courses and I'm receiving grades ranging from 95-103. It's also a terrible social environment. The school is excessively clique-y; I've already been shoved into the "losers" clique (which I don't mind at all; I love my friends), and many people won't talk to me just because of it. I was cyber-bullied by a student before I even started classes in September. All in all, honors is really just a letdown and I wish I'd chosen a different school to attend for the next four years.