Basically, it's hell.

"The best years of your life" as my mother says while she reads her 1977 yearbook.
Also known as Hell.
Contains a vast and diverse variety of teenagers yet they all fit snugly into categories and labels administered by their peers... some of the unfortunate ones are not teenagers anymore. We call those ones the slackers.
Controlled by sadistic "teachers" and "councillors", etc.

Petri dish for social retardation.

High school is a failed experiment in preparing young people for the adult world. All high schools in the country were built around 1960 and were designed to hold about half as many students as they currently do. Nothing seems to work quite right in a high school building. The heaters only work during the summer and the air conditioning only works in the winter. The asbestos insulation has all fagged out and the building becomes an oven or a meat locker, depending on the time of year. The plumbing is usually a disaster in high school, with drinking fountains never working but toilets that never stop running.

High schools are usually poorly run by a team of out of touch assholes, also known as Principals, counselor, teachers, and ex-Marine drill sergeants (gym teachers). These people seem hell bent on destroying all hope for students through tedious testing, poorly planned projects, educational videos made during the Truman Administration, and text books that mention the Soviet Union on every page.

High school is also the place where the stress of growing up and the stress of fitting in join forces to destroy even the strongest among us. Most of High school is not spent learning but involves trying to find friends who aren't complete douche bags, trying hook up with people of the opposite sex unsuccessfully, combing your hair, buying cloths in the effort that someone will notice you, working out so you will not get your ass kicked everyday, trying desperately to get rid of the zits that have taken over your face, driving a car that a homeless person wouldn't piss in or riding on an over crowed bus while choking on diesel fumes, while people you don't know make fun of you worse then your friends do, and on top of all of that, you must act like nothing is wrong in your life.

An idea that hasn't evolved since the industrial revolution. A brainwashing factory dedicated to implanting patriotism and loyalty to your country. Focused heavily on math and science so America can beat the Soviet Union... Oh wait, exactly.

Outdated system that once brainwashed your parents causing them to rethink their lives around 40; See midlife crisis. Destroys any imagination or creativity the student has before entering. The teachers want you to think if you fail here you're a failure of a human being and will never amount to anything. Often separated into gifted or honors classes and normal classes further enforcing isolation and feelings of insignificance. Where Pink Floyd's The Wall came from. Even the teachers aren't satisfied.

Training grounds for a meaningless life getting up, going to work, coming home and watching TV. Makes you believe that killing is right if it stops death in your country; See War. Makes you terrified of failing, which is awful because that destroys originality when no one has the courage to step outside the box.

Schools often hate art and music and put them secondary to Math and Science because spiritual satisfaction doesn't include money for the higher ups.

Someone needs to change it soon or we will never move forward as a people by embracing only the things that worked in the past.

Just an Epic Fail all around

a place you will remember in therapy

A place where the kids start to get "high" on drinking which is why they call it high school. You expect it to be like the fucking baloney Hollywood movies because your parents tell you high school is all about romance, dances, dating, and some other shit but it is totally the opposite unless if you party and ride your dick all the time AND get a car by your sophomore year.

a four year test of how much bullshit you can put up with.

unfortunately this an apropriate way to prepare for this word of bullshit we all live in

A high school is a porthole to hell where everyone goes insane ranging causes such as:
Keeping track of who the slutty girls in your school are going out with.
Trying to be cool.
Trying to find wtf crowd you belong in.
#1 Trying to keep sane.
There are also an ass load of crowds, as described above.