In A Class by Itself

For those of you that have not reviewed our mission statement recently, I will remind you that the first sentence contains the words “college preparatory.” This is not by accident, and we are constantly thinking in terms of how best we can prepare our students for this next experience.  So, it is at this time of year that we use college admissions as a justification to celebrate the success of our program and the hard work of our seniors. 

This year, however, I feel particularly compelled to speak about our college admissions because our senior class is so diversely talented. Let me get the standard description out if the way before I turn to the cool stuff. Our senior class averaged 1253 on the SAT, an all-time high for us, with our Fat Pencil students (12+ years at the school) averaging 1320. One-third of our seniors have been accepted to top-30 colleges and universities, with 8 students admitted to the University of Virginia, two of whom are Echols Scholars (a program at UVA that allows flexibility in a student’s required curriculum to allow them to pursue what interests them at a higher level). Seven students were admitted to Virginia Tech, two early decision and one to the School of Engineering.  Five students will play college athletics, three students will attend schools for the arts, and one will study architecture.  All in all, this is an exceptional class to celebrate this spring.
 
But it is the exceptional stuff that has me jazzed about this class. Among our seniors is the reigning Commonwealth chess champion, a student heading to college to sing opera, an award winning film maker headed to film school, a talented downhill skier who speaks four languages, a Monroe Scholar, a Division-I lacrosse goalie, and a budding student architect.  The diversity of interests and personalities, combined with a powerful focus has created a class of whom we can be proud.  And the best part—I see the same level of focus and interest in the classes to come.
 
So I hope you will allow me a bit of public pride and please don’t be bashful spreading the word because… there has never been a better time to be at North Cross.