# Did you "go to high school" with someone if they graduated behind you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 25, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052 "2025-12-25T18:44:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/21 "2025-12-26T00:02:27Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It would be odd to go to high school and only ever interact with kids in your same class year. I think that depends on a lot.I went to a huge high school. There were 4000 students- I would only say that “I went to high school with someone” if they either graduated the same year I did (or were supposed to) or if I actually knew the person. And I knew a lot of people who weren’t in my grade both because of the way my high school was set up and because I was involved in activities. By “the way my high school was set up”, I mean there was no such thing as 9th grade English or 10 grade social studies. We had certain requirements to graduate but how and when we met those requirements was mostly up to us. My English course could have had students from 9-12 grades. There were certain courses with pre-requisites but even those weren’t restricted by grade - you had to take Spanish 1 before Spanish 2 but you could have taken Spanish 1 anywhere from 9-11 grade. Not all schools are like that - at my son’s school every 9th grader took the same classes and so on. The only difference was that some were in honors classes. Even gym was divided into 9-10 and 11-12. So a kid in that school likely wouldn’t know anyone who was a junior or senior when they were a freshman unless they were in extracurriculars together. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/22 "2025-12-26T00:18:40Z")
I went to a small high school, probably about 220 students in grades 9-12. In the four years I attended, I knew everybody in every grade. My sister was a senior when I was a freshman; yes, I went to high school with her. Likewise, the neighbor boy was a freshman when I was a senior, and I went to high school with him. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/23 "2025-12-26T02:54:27Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > Somebody quipped “we didn’t go to high school with them. You and I graduated in ‘79 and they graduated in 1980.” And what if you had classes with them? I had numerous classes with multi grades. If you occupied the school together in a same time period (of any length), you went to high school together. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/24 "2025-12-26T08:49:02Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > If you occupied the school together in a same time period (of any length), you went to high school together. If I went to high school with someone, we started high school together and graduated together. Anybody else? We went to the same high school. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/25 "2025-12-26T09:34:21Z")
I went to high school with all kinds of people. Some were a year or two ahead. Some were a year or two behind. Never mind, I went to high school with all of them. My sister was four years behind me at high school. I went to school with Sis also. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/26 "2025-12-26T11:39:19Z")
A freshman and a senior who participated in the same extracurriculars during their one contemporaneous year went to HS together. (And I still think that the word should be “cotemporaneous.” But I don’t get to decide where the red underlines go.) ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/27 "2025-12-26T12:46:47Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > A freshman and a senior who participated in the same extracurriculars during their one contemporaneous year went to HS together. So if neither participated in any extracurricular activities, they weren’t in HS together? What if they were both in the same home room? ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/28 "2025-12-26T12:48:04Z")
I ‘went to school with’ Steve Harris out of Iron Maiden, and even shared a few classes with him. ‘At my school while I was there’ was Jonathan Ross, and I knew who he was (he was already appearing in adverts by this stage) but I never spoke to him (although I did interact with his older brother Paul, who was in my year). Another celebrity who ‘went to my school’ was Derek Jacobi, but that was before I was born, so I didn’t ‘go to school’ with him. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/29 "2025-12-26T14:46:05Z")
I went to school with Tim Berners-Lee. Well, actually I was in my last term, and a _grand fromage_ of 18+, as he would have been arriving as a short-trousered 11-year-old. So maybe not. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/30 "2025-12-26T14:55:06Z")
Pffft. I barely had friends in my own class. My best friends were all in other classes. We all went to school together. I’d been in school with some of them since junior high, and some since elementary school. Now, there was one I went all the way _through_ school with, from kindergarten to graduation, save for the one year I was in the Soviet Union. But she was the only close friend I had in my own class. Oddly, we only ever had one class together. I had more classes with some friends who were in other graduating classes. I had lots of classes with people in my class who were not friends. There was this one girl who’d been in my class since junior high, and we were always ending up in classes together-- it wasn’t that we disliked each other-- we just had nothing in common, and hardly spoke. But I ended up sitting right behind her at graduation. Funny, when it was over, she gave me a hug, but that was the last time I saw her. And most people in my class, for that matter, but I’m still in touch with several of the good friends I went to school with. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/31 "2025-12-26T16:26:35Z")
@Chronos nailed my ideas about the terminology. Which is to say that the OP’s friend was being a pedantic twit; if two people attended the same school overlapping in any calendar year, they “went to school together”. My 9-12 grade HS had about 600 students per year. So although you might recognize everybody in your class year, you (or at least me) didn’t know everyone’s name, much less be pals with them. My recollection is that all the “core” courses in the curriculum were segregated by grade. The various electives and extracurriculars were not. Although for some electives, the prereqs squeezed out some of the potential age range. e.g. hard to take 3rd year of a particular language any earlier than 11th grade. The vast majority of what socializing I did was with people in my grade and the one just above. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/32 "2025-12-26T16:46:41Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My recollection is that all the “core” courses in the curriculum were segregated by grade. I’d be very surprised to see that in math classes. The precalculus classes that I teach are a mixture of juniors and seniors, and the Algebra II classes are a mixture of sophomores and juniors (plus one senior this past semester), and an Honors Algebra II class will usually have one or two freshmen. Even a course like AP Calculus, which is mostly seniors, will still have a few juniors. The only math class where I wouldn’t be surprised to see everyone the same year would be Honors Algebra I, just because anyone taking Algebra I any time after freshman year probably wouldn’t be in the honors section (a high school Pre-Algebra class would also be mostly freshmen, but there, there are likely to be a few who failed it the first time and have to retake it). It makes it a real pain when there’s things like “All of the seniors will be out on this date for a field trip”. English 12 just won’t have class that day, and English 11 will be unaffected, but what do you do when that’s half of your precalc class? ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/33 "2025-12-26T17:09:04Z")
I went to high school with[The Map Thief](https://www.amazon.com/Map-Thief-Gripping-Esteemed-Priceless/dp/1592409407). We weren’t in the same graduating class, but we participated in several extra-curricular activities together and I went to parties at his house. We weren’t “friends” except in a pretty broad definition of the word, but we certainly knew each other fairly well and were on friendly terms. Our school was quite small at the time, so it was common to be well acquainted with people in different classes. If we’d graduated together, I’d likely say, “I was in the same high school class as Forbes.” As it is, I find it odd that anyone would claim I didn’t go to high school with him. What exactly was I doing then, all those times we were rehearsing school plays or singing in the school choir together? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/34 "2025-12-26T17:09:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > > My recollection is that all the “core” courses in the curriculum were segregated by grade. > > I’d be very surprised to see that in math classes. Depends on how strict and absolute you take “segragated” to mean. Most HS math classes have a specific year when it’s most typical to take them, but (as you describe) there are often students who take them in different years for various reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/35 "2025-12-26T18:13:26Z")
My brother went to school with Jon Bongiovi. My brother was a senior and Bon Jovi was a freshman and he didn’t know him but they are in the same yearbook. ---
**Author:** ![GESancMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gesancman/32/2923_2.png) [@GESancMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GESancMan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/36 "2025-12-26T21:25:19Z")
My cousin went to school with Michael Anthony. She was a freshman when he was a senior. She _did_ know him, because they lived on the same street. ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/37 "2025-12-26T23:16:26Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > they are in the same yearbook. This is the key to if you went to school with someone. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/38 "2025-12-26T23:28:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d be very surprised to see that in math classes. In my school, 1989-1993, all my math classes only had students from my year in them. If you were advanced, there was the honor track, and I remember freshman year we also had advanced algebra for students who tested into it. All classes, though, were of my grade level. The only class I remember with mixed years was physics, which was juniors and seniors. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2025, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/39 "2025-12-30T10:13:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > My recollection is that all the “core” courses in the curriculum were segregated by grade. The various electives and extracurriculars were not. My school was pretty much like that, but English was the only subject with 4 years. The 4th year was not required, and no one not planning on college took it, but the other 3 years were required for graduation. My city was dominated by a state university, so kids who had been out of the country at one time or another, in very different kinds of education programs, or whose parents had hired tutors from the university, would be working at many different levels. Then, there were kids who spoke something besides English at home, but didn’t read or write it well, and if it happened to be a language the school offered, would enter the 3rd year as freshmen. There were few classes where you could expect to see only one age-- maybe freshman gym. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052/40 "2025-12-31T06:11:47Z")
Yeah, if we went to the same high school at the same time. Though I never saw them, then it is a little pushing it, maybe? like if they wer eonly there for a very short period or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-you-go-to-high-school-with-someone-if-they-graduated-behind-you/1026052.md?page=1)