The Spirit is Alive!

Working in admissions, I hear and read all sorts of things about our school. Inevitably, the world outside our wood-shingled ravine has formed some stereotypes about College Prep. The one that is least true and probably bothers me the most is that College Prep lacks spirit and fun. College Prep is full of happy, vibrant young people. Some might go so far as to call this the happiest place on earth!

Every October we celebrate Spirit Week with dress-up days, competitions among the classes, and general goofiness. Witness the two videos below. The first one is a slideshow of all the zany outfits during Spirit week, from dead people, to toga-wearing Romans, to plants, dinosaurs, and more. The second one features a handful of sophomores showing that the Class of 2014 is not to be messed with on the dance floor!

Oh The Things One Sees Wandering Around College Prep

Last month, I stepped out of my office and saw a group of sophomores assembling a large structure near the top of campus. As I got closer, it appeared to be a very cool art project, which it was. Yet, it wasn’t for an art class. Sophomore Nick B. explains that his ode to Da Vinci’s bridge was actually made for Dr. Wilson’s Western Civilization class.

English at College Prep

English classes at College Prep have something for everyone. Whether it is the endless fascinating discussions had around the Harkness table or Nancy Steele’s poetry seminar, the English Department at College Prep is simply superb. Listen to Department Head Kate Kordich talk about the progression through the program.

Join us at the East Bay High School Fair!

The East Bay High School fair is an annual event put on by more than a dozen high schools. It is a great opportunity to gather materials and spend time with representatives from multiple schools all gathered in one place. This year, thirteen schools will attend, along with our friends from A Better Chance. We hope to see you on October 12, from 7-9 pm! Please click the fair flyer for more information.

Admissions Season Is Here!

Admissions is cyclical work. Today — September 20 — marks the first day that interested families can schedule a shadow visit at College Prep. Internally, it marks the transition from many months of hard work over the summer preparing for the upcoming admission season to a more outward facing time of interaction with prospective College Prep parents and students. In honor of the official beginning of the admission season, who better to give advice to high-school applicants than other students who have recently been through the process?

Class of 2011 College Matriculations

It is difficult to look at the following list without being awed by the continued success of  College Prep’s students. During a recent faculty meeting where he shared this data, Director of College Counseling Martin Bonilla began by thanking Head of School Murray Cohen for never putting “prestige” ahead of “fit” during Martin’s five years at Prep. For more context, please see last year’s blog post, Rankings and Perspective.

The Class of 2011 is truly remarkable, and here is where they will be attending college:

More Intraterm 2011

We covered Intraterm in a recent blog post, but these new videos are too awesome not to share. First up is Hoopla. I dare you not to smile while watching how much fun everyone is having! Next is “Folks and Spokes” about a 170 mile bike trip in California with an unexpected pit stop!

What Surpised You The Most About College Prep?

Almost two years ago, I interviewed a number of students across different grade levels about their experiences at College Prep. You can read more about the questions that were asked and see the first video in the original blog post. It’s finally time for installment number two! There are three or four more of these videos in the works that will be posted to blog in the coming months. Enjoy!

Hurray for Intraterm!

Ask any College Prep student about his or her favorite week of the school year and you’re likely to hear “Intraterm!” joyously mentioned more than any other.

Intraterm consists of special courses, field studies, internships, community service, and trips, offered to students during one week of the school year. The catalog changes every year, but here is sampling of this year’s choices. Trips include Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Santa Cruz, Belize, the Grand Canyon, the Yucatan, and Iceland! The more than 35 classes include Game Theory, Geology and Field Mapping, Hiking Bay Area History, Screenwriting, Animation, Tutoring Little Guys, Basic Cooking, Introduction to Aerial Dance, Kindergarten Revisited, and Yoga and Art Journaling.

As I walked around campus this week, it seemed something amazing was happening behind every door. Peeking in the auditorium revealed the “What’s All the Hoopla?!” class, in which students made their own hoops (as in hula) and practiced a variety of moves. Further down campus about fifteen students were practicing Parkour. How fun!

Stagecraft Masks Show Prep’s Creative Side

Each year, Stagecraft class students make masks for several weeks in the fall. Last year, we documented the masks in a Facebook photo album. This year, we have a short video, with Stagecraft teacher Charles Neifeld talking about the mask-making process followed by pictures of the amazing masks themseleves. Enjoy!

Rankings and Perspective

We’ve been down this road before. In December 2007, the Wall Street Journal ranked College Prep the sixth best private high school in the country. Last week, Forbes.com ranked the top twenty prep schools in the nation and College Prep ranked seventeenth.

Stagecraft Donates Playhouse to Local School

I’ve written about Stagecraft before, but I couldn’t resist this story, which has College Prep stamped all over it. Charles Neifeld has taught stagecraft here for sixteen years and for the last eight years his students have built a playhouse and donated it to a local school. This year Charles re-connected with Sarah Sugarman (Class of ’98) who teaches at an Oakland public elementary school, Monarch Academy, and arranged for the playhouse to be donated there.

College Prep’s Multicultural Evening

Multicultural Evening is an annual school-wide celebration of the rich diversity of cultures represented within the College Prep community. The event begins with a dinner filled with international delicacies followed by amazing performances by College Prep students and even some brave parents! It is always a highlight of the fall.  Thanks to junior Ben L. who put together the following video of this year’s performances.

College Prep Announces New Student Laptop Program for Class of 2014

The explosive growth in the use of information technology throughout the College Prep community has been part of a world-wide phenomenon.  Some of that growth at Prep has been intentional and well managed, like the long-standing faculty laptop program that has resulted in exciting curricular developments.  The on-campus explosion of student-laptop use (250 and counting!) represents a different sort of growth: inconsistent and underutilized.  Beginning next year, we will start very deliberately coordinating faculty and student laptop programs by initiating an inclusive, standardized laptop program for the Class of 2014 (and subsequent classes).

Project Jatropha: Global Citizenship In Action

Trust. Collaboration. Action. United against environmental destruction and poverty, we stand.

That is the mission of Project Jatropha, a remarkable collaboration between two College Prep students. Along with his sister Apoorva (’12), Adarsha S. (’11) created the ambitious Project Jatropha not just to protect the physical environment in rural south India, but also to boost the local economy.

The Brower Youth Awards honor young, emerging environmental leaders in North America, raising their profiles and furthering their work. Since 2000, 55 young people have received the Brower Award, and this year Adarsha S. was honored for his work with Project Jatropha.

As you can see from the video, Adarsha’s project is about so much more than the individual communities he is affecting. This is global citizenship in action and will hopefully inspire other young people to go out and change the world for the better.

Project Jatropha has a fantastic website where you can learn in great detail about this amazing work and get involved yourself!

more about “Adarsha Shivakumar – Brower Youth Awa…“, posted with vodpod