Roxbury Latin School
| Roxbury Latin School | |
|---|---|
| Address | |
| 101 Saint Theresa Avenue West Roxbury, MA, 02132 USA |
|
| Coordinates | 42°16′32″N 71°9′27″W / 42.27556°N 71.1575°WCoordinates: 42°16′32″N 71°9′27″W / 42.27556°N 71.1575°W |
| Information | |
| Type | Private |
| Motto | Mortui Vivos Docent (The dead teach the living) |
| Religious affiliation(s) | None |
| Established | 1645 |
| Headmaster | Kerry P. Brennan |
| Faculty | 47 |
| Enrollment | 290 |
| Student to teacher ratio | 6:1 |
| Campus | Suburban, 120 acres |
| Color(s) | Cardinal red, Sable black, white |
| Athletics | 10 sports 35 teams |
| Athletics conference | Independent School League (ISL) |
| Mascot | Fox |
| Rivals | Noble and Greenough School and Belmont Hill School |
| Average SAT scores | 2230 |
| Average ACT scores | N/A |
| Website | www.roxburylatin.org |
The Roxbury Latin School is the oldest school in continuous operation in North America.[1] The school was founded in Roxbury, Massachusetts by the Rev. John Eliot under a charter received from King Charles I of England. Since its founding in 1645, it has educated boys on a continuous basis.
Located since 1927 at 101 St. Theresa Avenue in the West Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, the school now serves about 290 to 300 boys in grades seven through twelve. Eliot founded the school "to fit [students] for public service both in church and in commonwealth in succeeding ages," and the school continues to consider instilling a desire to perform public service among its principal missions.
The school's endowment is estimated at $143.8 million,[2] the largest of any boys' school in the United States. The school maintains a need-blind admissions policy, admitting boys without consideration of the ability of their families to pay the full tuition.
Its previous headmaster, F. Washington Jarvis, who retired in the summer of 2004 after a 30-year tenure, published two books about Roxbury Latin: a history of the school and a collection of his speeches to boys at Roxbury Latin (With Love and Prayers). The title of the former, Schola Illustris, was the phrase Cotton Mather used to describe the school in 1690, following John Eliot's death. In addition to those books, Richard Walden Hale published Tercentenary History of the Roxbury Latin School in 1946. Roxbury Latin continues to hold a unique place in the history of American education.
Roxbury Latin School is a member of the Independent School League and NEPSAC. It has an unofficial sister school relationship with The Winsor School in Boston as well as an African brother school, the Maru a Pula School.
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[edit] Rankings
According to Peterson's Private Secondary Schools 2010, Roxbury Latin students scored a median of 2230 on the 2400 SAT scale, believed to be the highest score of any school in the country.[3] The July 2008 issue of the Roxbury Latin School Newsletter lists the SAT medians for the Class of 2008 as 750 Critical Reading, 750 Math, and 750 Writing. A 2004 piece in the Wall Street Journal noted Roxbury Latin for its acceptance rates at the most competitive universities, despite maintaining a low tuition relative to its peers ($17,900 in 2008-2009).[4] In 2003, Worth magazine ranked Roxbury Latin as the #1 "feeder school" for elite universities, with a larger portion of its graduating class attending Princeton, Harvard, or Yale than any other school.[5]
In 2008, the website PrepReview.com extended and updated the earlier survey by Worth magazine. Despite using more inclusive criteria in place of Worth's narrow focus on the Big Three, Roxbury Latin once again topped the rankings. PrepReview.com looked at the number of matriculants to all eight Ivy League undergraduate colleges as well as to MIT and Stanford. Roxbury Latin placed nearly half (45%) of its recent graduates among these institutions, the highest success rate of any secondary school in the world. The 2008 rankings by PrepReview.com placed Roxbury Latin first in all of the following categories: America's Top 50 High Schools, America's Best High Schools Ranked by SAT, and America's Best Private Day Schools. Additionally, PrepReview.com ranked Roxbury Latin first in the world among secondary schools for its students' success at gaining admission to Harvard University: in 2009, 20% of the graduating class at Roxbury Latin matriculated at Harvard. In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Roxbury Latin fifth in a list of the top 10 prep schools in America.
[edit] Transportation
The school provides school bus service for some students who live in the Dorchester, South Boston, Hyde Park, Mattapan, and Roxbury neighborhoods of Boston. The school charges a nominal fee for the bus usage.[6]
[edit] Athletics
The school has varsity, junior varsity and lower-level teams in football, cross country, soccer (fall), basketball, ice hockey, wrestling (winter), baseball, tennis, lacrosse, and track and field (spring). The school has a notable wrestling program, with the varsity coach Steven E. Ward recently being inducted into the wrestling hall of fame in 2009.
[edit] Extra-curriculars
The school has a wide variety of extra-curricular activities for its students to partake in. The Model United Nations program and the Debate and Public Speaking program are especially popular, with approximately a hundred students in each. The school participates in many Model United Nations conferences and Debate tournaments every year. Another moderately popular activity is Botball, an annual inter-scholastic robotics competition. The school team has done exceptionally well in recent years. In 2009, it placed 5th in the New England chapter and in 2010, it placed 2nd out of 19 teams, a school record. the school also boasts additional language clubs, and a chess team, as well as other community service clubs, such as Habitat for Humanity.
[edit] Music
The school has an extensive music program, available to students of all grades. There is junior chorus for seventh and eighth graders, and a chorus and a glee club for highschoolers. There is also a small a cappella group consisting of about fourteen singers called the Latonics that requires an audition. Additionally, there is a jazz band and several halls a year devoted to instrumental performances by students and faculty. Most of the students participate in the music program in some capacity.
[edit] Notable alumni
- John Bowles (1667) – Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
- John Wise (1669) – clergyman credited with revolutionary phrase "no taxation without representation"
- James Pierpont (1677) – principal founder of Yale University
- Paul Dudley (1686) – Chief Justice of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1745–1751) and Attorney General of Massachusetts (1702–1718)
- Joseph Warren (1755) – Continental Army General who was killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill, surgeon
- Increase Sumner (1763) – governor of Massachusetts (1797–1799), Justice of Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (1782–1797)
- John Warren (1767) – founder of Harvard Medical School, renowned surgeon
- Francis Cabot Lowell (1789) – businessman, member of Boston Lowell family, founder of Lowell, Massachusetts
- Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. (1796) – Royal Society and Harvard University fellow
- Edmund M. Wheelwright (1872) – architect, designer of Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts landmarks such as Longfellow Bridge, Horticultural Hall, and Jordan Hall
- George Lyman Kittredge (1875) – influential literary scholar and professor at Harvard University
- Edwin Upton Curtis (1878) - 34th and youngest-ever Mayor of Boston
- Arthur Vining Davis (1884) – president of Aluminum Company of America (1910–1949), major educational benefactor in United States
- Robert W. Wood (1887) – American physicist, professor at Johns Hopkins University
- Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1890) - landscape architect and journalist
- Edward Lee Thorndike (1891) – famed psychologist, former professor at Columbia, member of National Academy of Sciences
- William Welles Hoyt (1894) – medal winner in the pole vault at the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens
- James Dole (1895) – founder of the Hawaiian Company in Honolulu, Hawaii currently known as Dole Food Company
- Malcolm Whitman (1895) – tennis star, U.S. open champion in 1898, 1899, and 1900, member of original Davis Cup team and of Tennis Hall of Fame
- Paul Dudley White (1903) – "Father of Modern Cardiology," noted cardiologist, founder of American Heart Association
- James B. Sumner (1906) – noted chemist, recipient of 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
- James Bryant Conant (1910) – president of Harvard University, ambassador to Germany
- Marland P. Billings (1919) – noted geologist, Penrose Medal winner, Harvard University professor
- Albert Hamilton Gordon (1919) – Wall Street businessman, philanthropist
- Kevin P. Reilly, Sr. (ca. 1945) - retired CEO of Lamar Advertising Company and former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives
- Richard W. Murphy (1947) – former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Syria, Mauritania, Philippines, television commentator
- Richard Barnet (1948) – activist, scholar, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies
- Jared Diamond (1954) – noted biologist, author and Pulitzer Prize-winner for Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
- Paul G. Kirk (1956) – former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee
- Christopher Lydon (1958) – radio broadcaster and former host of NPR's "The Connection"
- David R. Godine (1960) - publisher
- Peter Rodman (1961) - former Assistant Secretary of Defense
- Peter Derow (1961) - voice alteration innovator, renowned historian, scholar; lecturer at Oxford University
- Peter Ivers (1964) - musician, composer, host of New Wave Theatre
- Michael J. Astrue (1974) - current Commissioner of Social Security Administration
- John R. Connolly (1991) - at-large member of Boston City Council
- Stefan Jackiw (2003) - classical violinist
[edit] References
- ^ School history: Schola Illustris: The Roxbury Latin School 1645-1995, David R. Godine, publisher
- ^ Charity Navigator Rating - Roxbury Latin School
- ^ Peterson's Private Secondary Schools 2007-2008.
- ^ "The Price of Admission." The Wall Street Journal. April 2, 2004.
- ^ PrepSchoolUSA: 2003 PrepSchool/High School Rankings.
- ^ "Directions." Roxbury Latin School. Retrieved on May 23, 2010.
[edit] External links
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