St. Ignatius College Preparatory

:"This article is about the high school in San Francisco, California. For the similarly-named high school in Chicago, Illinois, see St. Ignatius College Prep."Infobox Secondary school
name = Saint Ignatius College Preparatory

website = [http://www.siprep.org/ www.siprep.org]
motto = "Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam"
"For the Greater Glory of God"
president = Fr. Robert T. Walsh, S.J.
type = Coeducational Jesuit Secondary School
affiliations = Jesuit
established = 1855
city = San Francisco
state = CA
country = United States
enrollment = 1,400
grades = 9–12
faculty = 107
campus = Urban
mascot = Wildcats
newspaper = Inside SI
yearbook = The Ignatian

St. Ignatius College Preparatory, is a preparatory school in the Jesuit tradition serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1855. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, in the Sunset District of San Francisco, St. Ignatius is one of the oldest secondary schools in the U.S. state of California. It is known also as S.I.

History

St. Ignatius was founded as a one-room schoolhouse on Market Street by Fr. Anthony Maraschi, a Jesuit priest, just after the California Gold Rush in 1855. Maraschi paid $11,000 for the property which was to become the original church and schoolhouse. The church opened on July 15 1855, and three months later, on October 15, the school opened its doors to its first students.

SI was the high school division of what later became the University of San Francisco, but it has since split from the university and changed locations five times due to the growth of the student body and natural disaster. In 1880, SI moved its campus to a location on Van Ness Street in the heart of San Francisco, and by 1883, SI had become the largest Jesuit school in the nation. Within 26 years of the relocation, however, St. Ignatius would be completely destroyed. Though the school would survive the tremors of the 1906 earthquake with only moderate damage, the subsequent fires destroyed the school and church, forcing SI to find a new location near Golden Gate Park.

In 1927, the high school and university separated. Two years later, SI relocated its campus once more, this time to Stanyan Street, where it remained for 40 years. In the fall of 1969, SI's current Sunset District campus opened its doors to students and has been educating the youth of the Bay Area ever since. Though originally founded as an all-boys school, SI became coeducational in 1989 and is now home to 1,400 students. SI celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2005.

Academics

To prepare students for college, St. Ignatius requires coursework in English, mathematics, social science, physical science, foreign language, fine arts, physical education, and religious studies. Taught by a faculty that, in 2004, was one of 12 schools nationwide to be honored by Today's Catholic Teacher magazine for excellence and innovation in education. St. Ignatius offers honors courses and Advanced Placement classes, which may be used for college credit with a passing score. In 2006, 541 SI students took 1,220 AP tests with a pass rate of 74.26 percent. The Prep ranks among the top three schools in Northern California and has ranked among the top 20 schools in the nation for its AP success.

The average SAT score for the St. Ignatius class of 2005 was 1209, which is well above the national and state averages of 1028 and 1020. In 2007 every SI graduate went on to attend college, with over 97% of its graduating class attending a 4-year institution. SI has been ranked as one of the nation’s top-60 prep schools by the U.S. Department of Education.Fact|date=September 2007

tudent body

St. Ignatius attracts a student body from all parts of the Bay Area, including the San Francisco city limits, Marin County, the East Bay, and San Francisco Peninsula. In 2005, the ethnic makeup of the student body was 99.57% White, 0.12% Filipino, 0.1% Asian, 0.1% Hispanic, 0.06% Black, and 0.05% other. Fact|Please cite a source|date=October 2008 To make it possible for students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to attend, SI offered $1.3 million of financial aid in 2005-06. Approximately 20% of the student body receives financial aid, with the average award totalling just over $5,000.

Athletics

Sports are a major component of student life at St. Ignatius with approximately 860 students competing on 65 teams in 26 sports, including American football, basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, water polo, swimming, lacrosse, tennis, cross country, golf, crew, track and field. The Wildcats generally participate in the Western Catholic Athletic League (WCAL) in the Central Coast Section of California, though for some sports, teams belong to other leagues. Its athletics are highly ranked: the lacrosse team has consistently won the state championship and was ranked nationally in 2007 and 2008, marking the first time a lacrosse team west of the Mississippi has been ranked nationally. The men's rowing team ranked 1st in the nation in 2006, making it their 2nd year in a row. In addition, the crew competed in the world-renowned Henley Royal Regatta in England, where St. Ignatius won the Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in 2006. The SI Football team reached new accolades when they won the 2006 WCAL Championship for the first time since 1967. The team later went on to win the CCS Div. III Championship, setting a new bar for SI Football.Fact|date=February 2007

St. Ignatius' traditional rival is Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, also located in San Francisco. The SI-SH rivalry began with a rugby game on St. Patrick's Day in 1893 and is the oldest high school rivalry west of the Mississippi. SI and SH compete against each other in football, basketball, and baseball for the Bruce-Mahoney Trophy, which is named after two SI and SH alumni who died in World War II. St. Ignatius leads the series 42-18 and has won the trophy for the past ten years, however Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep won the first rugby game.

Wildcat teams practice and compete in facilities on campus and in the surrounding area. J. B. Murphy Field and Jack Wilsey Track are used by the football, lacrosse, soccer, field hockey and track and field teams. J.B. Murphy Field has undergone a multimullion dollar renovation and now features a field turf surface. SI offers two gymnasiums for basketball and volleyball, four tennis courts, and the Herbst Natatorium for the swimming and diving program and water polo teams. The rowing and baseball teams compete off-campus at San Francisco's Lake Merced and Daly City's Marchbanks Field, respectively.

Notable alumni

* Daniel Callaghan, 1907, USN RAd, WWII Medal of Honor Guadalcanal USS San Francisco
* George Moscone, 1947, Mayor of San Francisco, assassinated, 1978
* Leo T. McCarthy, 1948, former California Lt. Governor
* Gordon Getty, 1951, billionaire and businessman
* Jerry Brown, 1955, CA Att Gnrl, former Secretary of State, Governor, Mayor, Oakland, CA
* Mike Nevin, 1961, San Mateo County politician
* Paul Otellini, 1968 President of Intel Corporation
* Peter Casey, 1969 producer of Cheers, Frasier, writer on The Jeffersons
* Dan Fouts, 1969, NFL Quarterback, San Diego Chargers, Hall of Famer
* Ron Lagomarsino, 1969, Director, thirtysomething, Driving Miss Daisy
* Kevin Shelley, 1973, former California Secretary of State
* Bartlett Sher, 1977, Tony Award winning director, South Pacific; artistic director Intiman Playhouse
* Al Madrigal, 1989, comedian
* Sean Elsbernd, 1993, member, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
* Gwendoline Yeo, 1994, Hollywood actress
* Igor Olshansky, 2000, NFL defensive end, San Diego Chargers

ee also

*San Francisco high schools

References

External links

* [http://www.siprep.org/ St. Ignatius College Preparatory website]