Whitney Young Magnet High School Print

Contact Information

Principal: Dr. Joyce Kenner
Admissions Director: Nicole Neal
Phone: 773-534-7500
Web site: www.wyoung.org
Address: 211 South Laflin Street, Chicago, IL 60607
Freshman class size: 350
Total enrollment: 1,400 (grades 9 - 12)

 

Admissions

The average score of an admitted student has increased dramatically from 938 in 2004-2005 to 965 in 2009-2010 (+ 27 points) on the 1,000 point admissions scale. Scores showed little change until 2009-2010, when they jumped by 16 points. During this past year (2010-2011), the average score of an admitted Whitney Young student was 868 on the new 900 point scale. After adjusting for the difference in point scales, this latest score is flat with last year's high score.

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Programs

Whitney Young Magnet High School opened in 1975 as a Selective Enrollment High School. Young offers 35 Honors courses and 21 Advanced Placement courses. College courses are available to students who exhaust Advanced Placement offers. Whitney Young does not rank its students since all classes are at the college preparatory level. Young has been the Illinois State Academic Decathlon Champion for 19 out of the last 20 years, and has been in the top 5 in the nation for 9 of the past 10 years.

Whitney Young offers a broad arts program including Honors Studio classes in Drawing and Painting, Mixed Media, Printmaking, Sculpture, and Video. There is an extensive music program that includes band, orchestra, chorus and piano. Dance (e.g., jazz, stage, performance, etc.) and drama are also offered. Students can take a four year drafting program that includes two years of architecture.

Activities/Clubs/Sports

There are over 60 Active Clubs ranging from the Adventure Club to WY Stream (the radio broadcasting club). There are about a dozen different sports including baseball, basketball, chess, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and volleyball. Whitney Young's sports teams have successfully competed against others in the city. In 2004-2005, Whitney Young won 8 city sports championships including girls basketball, freshman/sophomore boys basketball, boys swimming relay, chess, cheerleading, boys indoor track and boys junior varsity tennis.

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 Young's 2009 composite of 26.4 (85th percentile nationally) and Chicago's 17.6 (30th percentile nationally), putting Young significantly above both the District (City of Chicago) average and the national average.

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Trends in ACT Scores

From 2005 to 2009, Young's composite ACT score has inched up from 25.4 (82nd percentile) to 26.4 (85th percentile) as shown below.

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Young's State of Illinois Ranking

  • State of Illinois rank: 4. In 2009, Young was ranked 4th in the state, steady with 2008 but down from 3rd in 2007, based on a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of average 11th grade reading and math scores on the Prairie State Exams.
  • Percentile: 84.38%. The percentile of students statewide who scored the same or worse than the average student at Young rose from 82.77% in 2007 to 84.38% in 2009.

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