Dear Interested Prospective Student for the School for Advanced Studies,

Most schools focus on parents and try to convince them that their school is the right choice for their child… but not us. We choose to focus on you and hope that you are a significant decision maker in this process!

We hope you have had the opportunity to think about the kind of school you would like to attend. The School for Advanced Studies was created for students who, perhaps like you, can answer one or more of these questions with a resounding “YES”:

• Would you like the chance to be in a classroom where the teacher is not the only source of knowledge, but the students also bring key facts and interpretations to the discussion?
• Do you want this to be a regular experience?
• Do you currently attend a school where you are often bored because you just aren’t that connected to what you are studying? Do you want that to change?
• Are you curious about people living in other countries all over the world or alive at other times in history? Are you intrigued by their beliefs, by their art, by their architecture, and by their stories?
• Do you want to take a deep dive, while in high school, into an area you are passionate about — whether that be math, science, fine arts, or humanities?
• Do you find yourself frequently asking questions about everything, and of everyone, not to insult or dispute, but to understand better?
• Do you appreciate the chance to try things, explore things, test things out, and think through ideas yourself?
• Have you had the experience at school of not receiving high grades on tests or assignments even though you know you are smart?
• Do you know you have things to contribute to the world even though you are “still a kid”?

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, you are a great fit to attend our school, the School for Advanced Studies.

At the School for Advanced Studies, you will join a community of students and teachers who like nothing more than learning together and from each other. It will be important that you work hard and contribute to class discussions. You will get to wrestle with difficult questions that sometimes have no answer. You will be introduced to great ideas that come not just from books but from music, paintings, folktales, lab experiments, and movies. You will be allowed – and encouraged — to discuss, and to argue, and to talk a lot, maybe more than you have ever talked before in your life. You will learn to make valid points and defend them.

It may surprise you at first how different this school will feel. At the School for Advanced Studies, our goal is to provide a school experience that will bring satisfaction and fulfillment to the types of young people we deeply appreciate – the types of young people we once were!

And, at the end of your time with us, you will graduate not only more thoughtful, more humane, and more philosophical, but also more prepared to be a leader and scholar at the finest colleges and universities in the world

My colleagues and I have created this school for you, and we look forward to learning alongside you at the School for Advanced Studies.

Sincerely,