A concise word for "senior high school students"
- Thread starter Yichen
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In the US, we're pretty specific in using juniors (11) and seniors (12). So you can't just say seniors because people will think you're talking about Grade 12 students. I don't know of any special term for these two grades referred to together. Maybe upperclass students. Maybe.
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Are you just thinking of students in the US? The terminology will differ from place to place. (For example, when I was in school, we were sixth formers - but that wouldn't make sense to most AmE speakers.)
In BE, if you were to use the term 'upperclass', you would risk it being read as 'upper class'. A book claiming to be just for upper class students would cause a riot!
You could call them "high school students" or even "high schoolers". That would suggest the students are in grades 9-12 (depending on the school district. Where I grew up, high school was 10th through 12th grade). If you want to be specific: 9th grade - freshman, 10th grade - sophomore, 11th grade - junior, 12th grade - senior. There is no word to describe just two specific grades.
Since we're speaking of AE here, I don't see the problem.
When I was in school, juniors and seniors were called upperclassmen:
Now we would not use upperclassmen to refer to both male and female students. One alternative would be to call them "upperclassmen and women", which is too awkward for most contexts.
▶noun (pl. upperclassmen) US a junior or senior in high school or college.
Now we would not use upperclassmen to refer to both male and female students. One alternative would be to call them "upperclassmen and women", which is too awkward for most contexts.