University-preparatory school
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A university-preparatory school or college-preparatory school (usually abbreviated to preparatory school, college prep school, or prep school) is a secondary school, usually private, designed to prepare students for a college or university education. Some schools will also include a junior, or elementary, school. This designation is mainly current in North America. In many parts of Europe, such as Germany, the countries of former Austria-Hungary, the Benelux and Scandinavia, secondary schools specializing in college-preparatory education are called gymnasia and/or in some countries athenaea.
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[edit] North America
[edit] United States and Canada
There are three types of preparatory schools in the United States and Canada. Some have living quarters (dormitory, dining room) where students reside (known as boarding schools). Most are day schools. A few schools combine the two approaches, such as Fay School and Worcester Academy, by providing boarding school services to out-of-area students and also admitting local students to the day-school programs. Some admit students of only one sex; others are co-educational. Prep schools are selective, academically challenging, and largely independent of state and local control.
Parents of top-tier prep school students often pay high tuition fees, and some tuition is comparable to Ivy League university costs (example: the day Brearley School and The Dwight School in New York City has tuition of just over $30,000; the boarding/day Middlesex School and Pomfret School both boast tuitions of over $40,000). Among the principal benefits of prep schools is a very low student-to-teacher ratio, hence, smaller class sizes than in public schools. The tuition allows schools to hire highly-qualified teachers and retain them in tenure. These schools often have significant endowments financing scholarships permitting demographic heterogeneity, such as Regis High School, which provides all admitted with a full scholarship.
Preparatory schools often place a strong emphasis on sports (see The Ten Schools Admissions Organization, Independent School Leagues or Ivy Preparatory School League). In many private schools students are required to participate in one or more of the school's sports teams. University-preparatory education is also often associated with the preppy subculture.
Many public high schools have regular College preparatory, Advanced Placement, IB programs.
In Canada, preparatory schools blend the American and British traditions. The schools generally address all aspects of the "well rounded" person. This honors the classical ideal that is expressed in the Latin phrase, "Mens sana in corpore sano" ("A sound mind in a sound body") by providing rigorous academics and strong athletic programs. University-preparatory schools also provide many other activities, such as elaborate plays and musicals, and many other clubs and leadership opportunites that prepare the students for university.
While most preparatory schools have an open admission policy, a few have very selective admission processes. Choate Rosemary Hall, Deerfield Academy, The Lawrenceville School,Loomis Chaffee School, Groton School, Milton Academy, Middlesex School, St. Paul's School, St. George's School, Regis High School, Phillips Andover, Phillips Exeter Academy and The Trinity School all have admission rates consistently under 20%. The application and attendance to these select top-tier schools is arduous, challenging and not open to all.
In the United States, prep schools have drawn upon British precursors but over time developed their own traditions. Some notable former prep school attendees include U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama and other prominent figures such as John McCain, Al Gore, John Kerry, James Baker, Howard Dean, Daniel Webster, William Carlos Williams, William Randolph Hearst, William Ford, Edward Harkness, Bill Gates, and Dan Brown.
[edit] Controversy
The term "diploma mills" has been used to describe several prep schools that the NCAA has ruled insufficient in their academic standards in determining eligibility for intercollegiate athletics. Athletes attending these four schools were declared academically ineligible for NCAA athletic participation after graduation from high school.[1]
[edit] Europe
[edit] United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, the concept of a university preparatory school has never existed as such. In British usage a preparatory school, more commonly "prep school", is an independent private fee paying school that a student attends prior to the move to senior school, and thus has nothing directly to do with university entrance. The only institutions specialising in university entrance are crammers for (usually) privately educated pupils who have failed to gain entrance to their university of choice directly from school, and whose parents are willing to pay for a year of specialist tuition to give them a second chance, but no-one attends these as a first choice option.
Historically independent secondary schools ("public schools" in British usage), and (mainly state sector) grammar schools would prepare some or most of their pupils for university entrance, though this was not explicitly their mission. With the introduction of comprehensive schools in the 1960s and 1970s, all secondary schools had a responsibility, at least in theory, to prepare their more academically able pupils for university entrance, (unless they were located in one of the relatively small number of places where state secondary schools only cater for under 16s, and sixth form colleges are responsible for the academic education of 16-18 year olds). In practice, in the late 20th century, some comprehensives in working class areas actually sent very few students to university. In the early 21st century, with the expansion of university education, most secondary schools are sending significant numbers of pupils to university: a school that does not do so risks being classified as a "failing school" and closed or placed in special measures.
[edit] France
In France, certain private or public secondary schools offer special postgraduate classes called classes préparatoires, equivalent in level to the first years of university, for students who wish to prepare for the competitive exams for the entrance in the Grandes écoles. French classes préparatoires are exceptionally intensive and selective, taking only the very best students graduating from high schools but generally not charging fees.
[edit] Spain
The International Baccalaureate Organization’s Diploma Programme in Spain was created in 1968. It is a demanding pre-university course of study that leads to examinations. It is designed for highly motivated secondary school students aged 16 to 19. The programme has earned a reputation for rigorous assessment, giving IB diploma holders access to the world’s leading universities. The Diploma Programme is rigorous and is world renown. Each student’s performance is measured against well-defined levels of achievement. These are consistent from one examination session to the next and are applied equally to all schools. The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) has shown that students are well prepared for university work. They are accepted by universities in more than 110 countries.
One school is the Academy School in the Balearic Islands, which is a member of the National Association of British Schools in Spain. It is inspected regularly both by British Inspectors and Inspectors from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. Among other prestigious schools are the Hastings School in Madrid, the Caxton College in Valencia, and the Bellver International College in Mallorca.
The International Preparatory Schools are ranked and recognised by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (MEC) and all teach a minimum level of Spanish language, science, literature, geography and history. The curriculum also varies from one international school to another.
[edit] Germany
A gymnasium is a particular type of school in Germany and other countries in Europe, with the goal to prepare its pupils to enter a university. The γυμνάσιον (gymnasion) of Ancient Greece was a place for physical and eventually also intellectual education of young men. The later meaning of intellectual education persisted in German and other languages, whereas in English, the older meaning of physical education was retained.
[edit] The Netherlands
In The Netherlands the official terminology is voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs (or simply VWO) meaning preparatory university education. The VWO is divided into the so-called atheneum and gymnasium. These are identical in level of education, the only difference being that a gymnasium education includes the subjects Latin during 3 to 6 years and Ancient Greek during 2 to 5 years; a student must include at least one of the classical languages in his final exams to obtain a gymnasium diploma. In Holland education is usually public.
[edit] Italy
In Italy there are several kinds of high schools, both public and private, whose curriculum has as a primary aim the preparation for university. These are called "Liceo", plural "Licei". Other kind of high schools, usually referred to as "technical institutes", also offer the possibility to attain university after graduation, although they also form students to have some kind of professional prospective after graduation. There are four main types of Licei: Liceo Classico (focusing on classical subjects, such as Italian, Latin and Ancient Greek language studies), Liceo Scientifico (lacking Greek to devote approximately equal time to the remaining classical subjects and scientific subjects), Liceo Artistico and Liceo Linguistico.
[edit] Asia
[edit] Singapore
In Singapore, prep schools for universities are known as "junior colleges".
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- The Independent Schools Directory (Global)
- National Association of Independent Schools
- Independent Schools Association of the Southwest
- Canadian Association of Independent Schools
- The Association of Boarding Schools
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