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 private secondary school designed to prepare a student for higher education. Some schools will also include a junior, or elementary, school. This designation is mainly current in North America.

1 North America
- 1.1 Controversy
2 Europe
- 2.1 France
- 2.2 United Kingdom
3 External links
4 Notes

[edit] North America

There are three types of preparatory schools in the United States and Canada. Some have facilities in which students reside (known as boarding schools); most are day schools, and some boarding schools also admit students who reside locally, but who seek the benefits of prep schools. Some admit students of only one gender; others are co-educational. Prep schools are highly selective, academically challenging, and largely independent of state and local controls. The existence of such controls, which are a primary defining characteristic of public, government-operated, elementary and secondary schools, have contributed to the support and growth of prep schools, because these controls are widely viewed by preparatory school proponents as an unacceptable burden on the educational process, and on student outcomes such as university matriculation. Parents of students in the top tier of preparatory schools pay fees that are comparable to tuition at Ivy League universities. Among the principal benefits of preparatory schools is a very low student to teacher ratio, resulting in much smaller class sizes than in most public schools. The tuition money allows the schools to hire highly qualified teachers and to retain them for long tenures. These schools often have significant endowments which finance scholarships that allow for demographic heterogeneity and financial aid.

Preparatory schools 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 some one 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 focus on all aspects of the "well rounded" human being (honoring a classical ideal many see expressed in the Latin phrase "Mens sana in corpore sano"); including rigorous academics and athletic programs. University-preparatory schools also focus on many other opportunites such as elaborate plays and musicals, and many other clubs and leadership opportunites that prepare the students for University.

In the United States, prep schools have drawn upon British precursors but over time developed their own American tradition. Some notable former prep school attendees include U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and other prominent figures such as John Kerry, Daniel Webster, John F. Kennedy Jr., William Randolph Hearst, Ambassador John R. Bolton, and Dan Brown.

[edit] Controversy

The term "prep school" has been applied to several schools that the NCAA has ruled insufficient in their academic standards in determining eligibility for intercollegiate athletics. Athletes attending these schools were declared academically ineligible for NCAA athletic participation after graduation from high school.^[1]

[edit] Europe

[edit] France

In France, certain exclusive, selective 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] United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom schools are classified in other ways. The term preparatory school, more commonly "prep school" is used in a different way to describe schools which prepare students under thirteen for the equivalent of preparatory schools, called prestigious fee-paying Public Schools.