Young people in the United States are very connected to their social peer groups while attending school. The friend groups that they develop in school and in extracurricular activities can become a strong support network.

Sometimes students stay in cliques of the same group of friends, while other students may have several different groups of friends. Like most youth around the world, they are often friends with people on the same sports team or in the same extracurricular clubs as them because of their shared interests. They also develop friend groups from spaces outside of their school such as their church, recreational sports leagues outside of school, their neighborhoods, and other social clubs.

While the level of community and school resources can vary based on socio-economic demographics, across the board the culture of extracurricular activities such as sports, music, arts, and academic clubs tends to be very strong in the United States. Many students play some form of sport from a young age either through their school or an external recreational league. Soccer, football, and basketball are the most popular sports among young people, but they can also participate in track and field, cross country, field hockey, lacrosse, baseball, and other sports. The practice time and games for sports tend to happen right after the school day and on weekends. In some school communities, particularly in lower-income parts of the South, sports such as football and basketball are sometimes seen as a way out of poverty and low-income students can be very motivated to do well in order to obtain sports scholarships to college. However, the proportion of students that hold this aspiration compared with the number of young people who actually receive college scholarships for sports is extremely low, with only 2 % of high school athletes being awarded scholarships to compete at the collegiate level according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Other clubs that youth focus on include band, theater, visual arts, newspaper, student council, Model United Nations, and other more academic or arts-oriented clubs which also tend to happen right after the school day and meet anywhere from once a week to every weekday after school. Depending on the school, some students are able to participate in multiple clubs and explore sports, arts and/or more academic-oriented clubs concurrently.

Students attend their school day typically from around eight or nine in the morning until three or four in the afternoon. From there, students can stay after school for sports or other extracurricular activity clubs, and then go home via school bus, public transportation, or their parents/other family members picking them up from school. In New York City and other large cities, it is not uncommon for high school students to take public transportation such as the subway to school. However, in many areas, especially more suburban and rural areas, most students take a school bus to get to and from school. Students in higher socio-economic classes may have their own car to drive to and from school after they get their license from the age of 16 and onward.

While some young people in the United States are very focused on their personal and family lives, as well as their career paths and extracurricular activities, there are many young people in the United States who engage in activism for racial, economic, gender and environmental justice. There are several youth-led advocacy groups such as the Sunrise Movement that focus on environmental justice and March for our Lives, which focuses on gun control where young people can engage in political causes. The role and activism of these organizations has grown substantially over the last ten years. Some high schools and universities have local chapters of political advocacy groups that allow young people to engage in pushing for a more just United States to eliminate the inequities that exist by race, class, gender, sexuality, and more.