It Depends
The Rule
"High school" works like most institutional terms in English. It's a common noun when it describes a level of education, and it becomes part of a proper noun when it's in an official name.
Think of it like "lake." You swim in a lake (lowercase), but you swim in Lake Michigan (capitalized). Same word, different job. High school describes where teenagers go to learn. Westfield High School is the specific name of a building with a sign out front.
The tricky part is that people write about their own high school experience constantly – in college essays, resumes, LinkedIn profiles – and the instinct is to capitalize it because it feels important. But "importance" isn't a capitalization rule. If you're not naming a specific school, it's lowercase.
Quick Rules
Capitalize when
- Part of a specific school's name: She graduated from Roosevelt High School.
- In a title (title case rules): My High School Experience
- First word of a sentence: High school prepares students for college.
Keep lowercase when
- Referring to the level of education generally: She's a high school student.
- Talking about the experience generally: I went to high school in Texas.
- Used as an adjective: high school diploma, high school football, high school reunion
- No specific school is named: He's been teaching high school English for ten years.
Tip: If you can put a specific name in front of "High School" and it would be the school's official name, capitalize. If not, lowercase.
Examples
✓ Do
- She graduated from Jefferson High School in 2019.
- He's been teaching high school English for ten years.
- My high school was in a small town in Oregon.
- The rivalry between Central High School and Eastside High School is decades old.
✗ Do not
I hated High School.
General reference, not a proper name. Lowercase: I hated high school.
She got her High School Diploma in May.
"High school diploma" is a generic credential, not a proper noun. Lowercase both words.
He teaches at the High School on Oak Street.
Unless that is literally the school's name, it's a generic reference. Lowercase: the high school on Oak Street.
Edge Cases Worth Knowing
These are the situations that trip up resume writers, college essayists, and educators most often.
- "High school" on a resume. Lowercase in descriptions: Graduated from high school in 2018. Capitalize when naming the actual school: Graduated from Lincoln High School, 2018. Resume section headers like "HIGH SCHOOL" are a design choice, not a grammar rule.
- "High-school" as a compound adjective. Some style guides recommend hyphenating when "high school" modifies a noun (high-school teacher). AP style does not hyphenate. Most modern writing skips the hyphen: high school students is widely accepted.
- Middle school, elementary school, junior high. Same rules. Lowercase when general (she's in middle school), capitalize when part of a name (Oakridge Middle School). The pattern is consistent across all school levels.
- "The high school." Even with "the," keep it lowercase when you're not naming a specific school: The high school down the road has a new gym. Capitalize only if "the" is part of the institution's official name (rare).
- College and university. Same pattern. She went to college (lowercase), She went to Boston College (capitalized). "College" on its own is not a proper noun, even when you're clearly talking about a specific school.
Frequently Asked Questions
Writing about your school in a title or heading? Our free Title Case Converter applies the correct capitalization rules for AP, APA, Chicago, and MLA styles.
Open the converter with a prefilled example and adapt it to your headline.
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About Oleh Kovalenko
Oleh Kovalenko develops practical capitalization guidance for editorial and SEO workflows, with a focus on consistent rule application.
