Horace Greeley High School
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Horace Greeley High School is a public, four-year secondary school located in Chappaqua, New York and serving the Chappaqua Central School District. As of 2006, the school principal is Andrew Selesnick. The school's enrollment stands at roughly 1,300.
Horace Greeley is nationally respected for its high academic standards. It currently offers 23 advanced placement courses and came in at #42 in Newsweek's 2005 ranking of America's best high schools. Recent years have seen approximately one-fifth of graduating seniors recognized by the National Merit Scholarship committee; the class of 2004 included 25 National Merit semifinalists; the class of 2005 had 16. The mean SAT score among graduating seniors in the Class of 2005 was 1269 (612 Verbal and 657 Math). 97% of the Class of 2005 went on to higher education, 96% to four-year colleges.
The high school is also a regional, and in some cases national, powerhouse in several extracurricular programs. Its quiz bowl team won the National Academic Championship in 2003, and placed among the top six teams at the national tournament in five of the six years between 2000 and 2005. The [Horace Greeley Debate Team] has been successful at many regional tournaments as well as national tournaments, and has sent debaters to States every year since its inception in 2002. The Science Olympiad and Model United Nations teams have also won numerous accolades, as have the newspapers and yearbook. In addition, the high school's orchestra, chorus, and band are consistent winners of the Music in the Parks state competitions held annually at Six Flags in New Jersey.
Distinctive programs at Horace Greeley include the LIFE (Learning Independently From Experience) school, an alternative school for grades 11-12 located on campus; independent study and senior project options; a child study program linked to an on-site preschool; college-level classes offered through a partnerhsip with Syracuse University; and a science research program to prepare students for prestigious competitions like the Intel Science Talent Search. Arts and athletic offerings are extensive, and classes are offered in five foreign languages under most circumstances: Spanish, French, Latin, Russian, and, at the LIFE school, Italian. In the 2005-2006 school year, Ancient Greek will be taught for the first time.
The school is named for Horace Greeley, a U.S. presidential candidate and editor of The New York Tribune who made his home in Chappaqua late in life. One of the school's two student newspapers, The Greeley Tribune, is an additional tribute to the newsman. The other paper is The Advocate and the school's yearbook is The Quaker, also the school's mascot.
Other popular student organizations at Greeley include the umbrella community service group, S.H.A.R.E., S.A.D.D.D. (Students Against Drinking and Drugging while Driving), Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA), Alliance for Equality, Students for Social Justice, and Amnesty International, among many others. On Wednesdays, classes are shortened to allow clubs to meet for an hour at the start of the day.
Sports are also popular on campus and among the diverse offerings are varsity programs in baseball, basketball, bowling, cheerleading, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, skiing, soccer, softball, swimming and diving, tennis, track and cross country, volleyball, and wrestling. Fox Lane High School, in nearby Bedford, New York, is HGHS's traditional rival in athletics.
After Greeley
Many Horace Greeley graduates matriculate at top-ranked universities and liberal arts colleges including Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, and Stanford University. Cornell University is particularly popular, and usually accepts 10 to 20 graduating seniors; in any given year there are 80 to 90 total Greeley alumni in Cornell's undergraduate and graduate programs. Binghamton University is also a highly popular college choice.
Notable people
Horace Greeley High School has had a number of notable alumni, including:- Joe Berlinger, director of the film Some Kind of Monster (2004);
- Jay Braun aka Jason Braun ('89), music producer, mixer of recording artists including Blues Explosion, The Stills, Fiery Furnaces, founding member of The Negatones
- Tom Gilburg, former football player in the NFL for the Baltimore Colts (now the Indianapolis Colts) and now head football coach at Franklin & Marshall College;
- Susan Hockfield, president (2004-) of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT);
- Brad Jenkel ('85), producer of films including The Matador (2005), and Dumb and Dumber (1994) [imdb];
- Steve Kroft ('63), journalist and correspondent on the TV program 60 Minutes;
- Brian Leiser ('90), alternative musician, member of Fun Lovin' Criminals;
- Jordan Mechner, game designer, creator of the computer game Karateka, the video game Last Express, and the series of Prince of Persia video games;
- Lawrence Meyers, screenwriter;
- Danny O'Keefe ('86), TV writer for Seinfeld, famous for introducing Festivus;
- Jason Scott Sadofsky ('88), film director and historian;
- Dar Williams, folk-pop singer-songwriter;
- Vanessa Williams, model, actress and singer
External links
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