self reply cuz i'm stupid: I see from your response to retsuko that you've already thought about this. I wish I had a suggestion for how to find out what the average levels of high school preparation are like... but I don't. Where I'm at I just learn it from watching a variety of students... and it helps to presume that some of my students came from little Catholic girls' schools in Nigeria... cuz some of them did, and YES this means their prep was radically different. I wish I had a better way to help you gauge this, cuz I know it's maddening!