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Stuyvesant High School

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File:Stuy4.jpg
Stuyvesant High School, view of the school looking northwest from Chambers St. and West St.

Stuyvesant High School, founded in 1904, is a math and science public high school in New York City. Admission is based solely on an entrance exam, and tuition is free. Stuyvesant is one of the most prestigious public high schools in the United States.

Overview

Admission to Stuyvesant High School is open to residents of New York City entering high school. Enrollment is based solely on performance on the Specialized Science High School Admission Test (SSHSAT). Of the 20,000 students who take the exam each year, only about 800 students who score in the highest score bracket are admitted. Those who score in the second highest score bracket are offered admission to the Bronx High School of Science, and those who score in the third highest bracket are offered admission to Brooklyn Technical High School.

Known for its excellence in mathematics and science, "Stuy," as it is often known, has produced numerous Nobel Prize laureates and a host of accomplished alumni. It consistently leads the nation in number of National Merit Scholarships as well as Intel Talent Search Semi-Finalists and Finalists. A 1958 study found that Stuyvesant graduates earned more Ph.Ds than those of any other high school in the nation. Stuyvesant will celebrate the graduation of its centennial class in 2004 with many events and reunions scheduled to take place throughout the year, including an All-Class Reunion on June 6, 2004.

Stuyvesant's foreign language offerings now exceed those of many universities, and include Hebrew, Japanese, Italian, and many more. In 2000, Mandarin Chinese and Korean were introduced in response to Stuyvesant's burgeoning Asian American population.

Stuyvesant High School

Seal of Stuyvesant High School
Pro scientia atque sapientia
(For science and knowledge)

Established 1904
School type Public
Principal Stanley Teitel
Location New York City
Enrollment approx. 3,000
Campus Urban
Homepage www.stuy.edu

History

Stuyvesant High School is named after Peter Stuyvesant, the last Dutch governor of New Netherland before the colony was taken over by England in 1664.

The school was established in 1904 as a manual training school for boys, hosting 155 students and 12 faculty. In 1907 it moved from its original location at 225 East 23rd Street to 345 East 15th Street, where it remained for the following 85 years. Its reputation for excellence in math and science continued to grow, and the school had to be put on a double session in the early 1920s to accommodate the rising number of students. In the 1930s, admission tests were implemented, making it even more competitive. During the 1950s, a $2 million renovation was done on the building to update its classrooms, shops, libraries and cafeterias. In 1969, 14 girls enrolled, marking the first co-educational year. Now, approximately 43 percent of studentd are female.

Stuyvesant High School moved downtown to 345 Chambers Street in Battery Park City, TriBeCa in 1992. The new ten-floor, $250 million building has 12 laboratories, a large cafeteria overlooking the Hudson River, 12 shops, multiple gymnasia, a 25-yard, six-lane swimming pool, over 450 computers on 13 networks, and a 26" color RCA television in almost every room. Moviegoers may be able to recognize the school from several scenes in the movie Hackers, filmed in November, 1994 using upperclassmen students as extras.

Shortly after the new building was completed, a bridge was built at a cost of $10 million to allow students to enter the building without having to cross the extremely busy and dangerous West Street. The bridge is now the primary method by which students enter the building, and many Stuyvesant students will have memories of crossing it twice a day.

Demographics

Although heavily Jewish in its formative years, the student body as of 2004 was approximately five percent Asian and 39 percent Caucasian, with Blacks and Hispanics in severe underrepresentation, each constituting roughly three percent of the population. Russian and Indian students are well-represented, and Jews continue to maintain a strong presence.

In the past few years, several articles have been published in The Spectator, Stuyvesant's student newspaper, commenting on what seems to be a complete lack of interaction between the different racial groups at Stuyvesant. Most students prefer to socialize within their own ethnic groups, and Stuyvesant has developed into a miniature of New York City's "salad bowl" — with different sections of the Stuyvesant building being implicitly reserved for members of particular ethnic groups.

It is well known at Stuy that the sixth floor is for Asians, while the second floor is for whites, the fourth floor is for Indians, and the fifth floor is for blacks. Although a few attempt to break the status quo by socializing with students outside their ethnic groups, the situation is thus far unresolved.

Some students don't mind the geographic racial breakup of the school [1]. The site, which offers a student's point of view of the school, says there is significant racial interaction despite the location of the groups' lockers. The site insists all of the aforementioned areas have multiple individuals of different races residing in those areas that discredit the seemingly territorial connotations the "designations" imply.

September 11 and Stuy

Stuyvesant is a quarter-mile from the former site of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed on September 11, 2001. The school was evacuated during the ordeal and the students were temporarily relocated to Brooklyn Tech starting September 21 while the Stuyvesant building was used as one of several bases of operations by rescue and recovery workers. Normal classes resumed three weeks later on October 9. The following is a list of the Stuyvesant alumni who were killed during the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center:

Notable Alumni


Also of note, Frank McCourt taught English at Stuyvesant before the publication of his novel Angela's Ashes.

See also: Hunter College High School, NCSSSMST

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