High school is a term used in parts of the English-speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education, but not always the highest years of basic education, which can be called a "secondary school" or "secondary college" or other terms, depending on the nation or region (see below: Usage by country). The phrase "high school" is often incorporated into the name of the related institutions.

The term (as "high school") originated in Scotland, with the world's oldest being Edinburgh's Royal High School from 1505. The Royal High School was used as a model for the first public high school in the United States, the English High School founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1821. The precise stage of schooling provided by a high school differs from country to country, and may vary within the same jurisdiction. In all of New Zealand and Malaysia along with parts of Australia, Bangladesh and Canada, high school is synonymous with secondary school, and encompasses the entire secondary stage of education.

Hunter College High School is a New York City secondary school for intellectually gifted students located on Manhattan's Upper East Side. It is administered by Hunter College, a senior college of the City University of New York. Although it is not operated by the New York City Department of Education, there is no tuition fee and it is publicly funded. The school's curriculum strives for a balance of achievement in the humanities and the sciences, and is widely revered as excelling in both fields. Hunter is noted for sending a very large percentage of students to the Ivy League and other top-ranked colleges and universities. It has been ranked as the top public high school in the United States by The Wall Street Journal in addition to other sources for several years running.

Established in 1869 as "The Female Normal and High School," a private school to prepare young women to become teachers, Hunter now offers a competitive college preparatory program for both genders. The original school was composed of an elementary and a high school. A kindergarten was added in 1887, and in 1888 the school was incorporated into a college. The high school was separated from what would become Hunter College in 1903. In 1914, both schools were named after the Female Normal School's first president, Dr. Thomas Hunter. Despite its success in teaching generations of gifted young women, it was almost closed by Hunter College President Jacqueline Wexler in the early 1970s.