Northside College Preparatory High School Print

Contact Information

Principal: Barry Rodgers
Admissions Director: Louis Correa
Phone: 773-534-3954
Web site: www.northsideprep.org
Address: 5501 North Kedzie Ave, Chicago, IL 60625     
Freshman class size: 260
Total enrollment: 1,400 (grades 9 - 12)

 

Admissions

The average score of an admitted student has increased steadily from 941 in 2004-2005 to 985 in 2009-2010 (+44 points) on the 1,000 point admissions scale. A sizable portion of the freshmen class in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 received perfect or near perfect scores. In the most recent round of admissions (using the 900 point scale), the average score of an admitted student was 887.

sehs_northside_fig1

Programs

Northside College Prep, one of the newer Selective Enrollment High Schools, opened its doors in 1999, becoming the first new Chicago Public High School to be built in 20 years. Northside quickly became an academic powerhouse. It ranked first in the state on the Prairie State Exams in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Northside students were City of Chicago Champions in the Academic Decathlon (2004) - defeating long time champion Whitney Young - and Illinois State Champions in the Academic Decathlon (2003), and National Academic Decathlon Champions, Division Three (2003).

All of Northside's core classes are taught at either the Honors or Advanced Placement (AP) level. Northside does not rank its students since all classes are at the college preparatory level. Northside uses a college-like scheduling scheme - sessions are twice as long as typical high school classes, but only meet twice a week. Northside has 24 Advanced Placement classes. Academic highlights include:

  • Colloquium: Northside Prep boasts a wide range of "Colloquium" courses where teachers have used their academic passions to develop specialized mini-courses. Colloquium classes are taken on a pass/fail basis.
  • Mathematics: Northside uses an unusual problem-based approach, Interactive Mathematics. Interactive Mathematics proponents claim that this new approach promotes more active student engagement in creatively solving mathematics problems. Northside Prep's statistics program has been ranked best in the United States by the College Board.
  • Foreign language: Northside offers six foreign languages including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish.
  • Computer Science: Northside offers a computer science curriculum that provides a background in information technology and includes work in programming (e.g., object oriented, java based, hardware, etc.) and software applications.

Activities/Clubs/Sports

Northside College Prep's athletic program includes a wide range of sports including basketball, bowling, cheerleading, chess, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming/diving, tennis, track and field, volleyball, water polo, and wrestling. Northside has won city championships in golf, swimming and diving. There is no football team. In 2002, when Northside was given a choice between a football team or a rock-climbing wall, a rock-climbing wall was chosen. That's why Northside holds its homecoming dance for its basketball team in the winter.

Academics

The ACT is the most widely used college admissions test, so its scores are a useful guide for comparing high school academic performance. The test contains four sections: English, Mathematics, Reading, and Science, a composite score is the average of these sections. The score of any of these sections and the composite range from 1 to 36.

Selective Enrollment High School students achieved an average composite score of 24.1 (75th percentile nationally) in 2009. This compares to Northside's 2009 composite of 28.6 (93rd percentile nationally) and Chicago's 17.6 (30th percentile nationally), putting Northside significantly above both the District (City of Chicago) average and the national average.

sehs_northside_fig2

Trends in ACT Scores

From 2005 to 2009, Northside's composite ACT score has stayed at a percentile in the low to mid 90s as shown below.

sehs_northside_fig3

Northside's State of Illinois Ranking and National Ranking

  • State of Illinois rank: 1. In 2009, Northside was ranked 1st in the state, repeating a position that it has held for the past several years, based on a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of average 11th grade reading and math scores on the Prairie State Exams.
  • Percentile: 91.47%. The percentile of students statewide who scored the same or worse than the average student at Northisde rose from 87.7% in 2007 to 90.91% in 2008 to 91.47% in 2009.
  • National Rank: 37. Northside College Prep has been ranked #37 in the country by U.S. News & World Reports. This ranking is based on a number of criteria including test performance, the performance of minority students in comparison with their peers across the state, and college readiness as assessed by AP (Advanced Placement) performance.

For additional academic information about Northside, click here for a state report card.