Grade 13

In Ontario, Canada, a final grade is/was required for those students who plan on continuing to a University. Ontario is the only place in North America with an extra year of high school.

Currently grade 13 is refered to as Ontario Academic Credit.

Ontario Academic Credit will be abolished in Ontario, in 2003, resulting in both grade 12 and 13 students applying to university at the same time. Ontario instituions are bracing themselves for an overcrowding of students.

I avoided grade 13 by moving to Massachusetts :-)

In South Australia (and possibly the rest of Australia), grade 13 is another name for re-entry high school, in which an adult student can study year 11 and 12 subjects to complete and/or top up their high school certificate.

The name "grade 13" in this case is essentially worthless, since it's really just grade 11 and 12. The term only serves to confuse people who have no direct links to re-entry students, and therefore completely misunderstand the concept.

When I first began high school, I intended to take year 13 for completion's sake. Now I've almost finished year 11, and will (hopefully) get my high school certificate at the end of next year. Excluding tertiary education, further completion is not necessary.

In Los Angeles, grade 13 is very often used as a reference to somebody's freshman year at Santa Monica College or sometimes West L.A. College (both of these are community colleges, who are not picky about who they allow admission into their school). Saying SMC (I will use SMC since it's the most common reference) as grade 13 is saying "I'm going to attend SMC immediately after high school". Describing SMC as grade 13 is not in any way a compliment. It is used is to show that SMC is not an advanced school but more of a another level of an LAUSD public high school. Since SMC is a community college and thus a "loser school" 13th grade is like saying you're repeating the 12th grade.