College preparatory

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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 gymnasiums and/or in some countries atheneums.

North America

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: Brearley School, Spence School, Trevor Day School and Chapin School in New York City have tuition of nearly $30,000 a year or over, Middlesex School boasts a tuition 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.

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.

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. Deerfield Academy, Groton School, Saint Paul's School, Phillips Andover and Phillips Exeter Academy 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, Edward Harkness, Bill Gates, and Dan Brown.

Controversy

The term "prep school" has been used to describe several 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]

Europe

Germany

Main article: Gymnasium (school)

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.

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.

Italy

Main article: Liceo Classico

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 studies such as Latin and Greek, Liceo Scientifico about Sciences, Liceo Artistico and Liceo Linguistico.

The Netherlands

In The Netherlands the official terminology is voorbereidend wetenschappelijk onderwijs (or simply VWO) meaning prepatory university education. The VWO is divided into the so-called atheneum and gymnasium. These are identical in level of education with the only difference being that a gymnasium-education includes the subjects Latin and/or Ancient Greek.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom schools are classified in different ways depending on whether they are in the Private or State sector. A preparatory school, more commonly "prep school", is an Independent Private fee paying school that a student attends prior to the move to private senior school (and after pre-preparatory school).

Most commonly a UK prep school is for children between the ages of 8 and 13 and the school will prepare students to pass the Common Entrance Examination, a qualification recognised by all senior Independent schools. A UK prep school can be a day school or boarding school.

References

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