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Webinar Clip - Gonzaga Prep 101

Added Nov 18, 2020 •

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Want to know what Gonzaga Prep is all about? Watch this webinar snippet to hear Admissions Director Katie O'Brien describe who we are as a school.

Show Transcript

hello everyone thank you so much for joining us this evening and I think I see most of the folks who I'm signed up online and I'm in advance and maybe a few other people so I'm so glad that you're able to join us tonight live for our sort of admissions webinar we're calling them family information sessions but a chance hopefully for you just to learn a little bit more about the process as well as about Gonzaga Prep in general, so first of all my name is Katie O'Brien I am the admissions director here at Gonzaga Prep if we haven't had the chance to chat over the phone or meet in person it's nice to meet you at least this way and a graduate of Gonzaga Prep I'm here in my second year as the admissions director and I previously came from the world of College admission so for about a little over 10 years I worked at Seattle University in the admissions office there as recently as the Director of undergraduate Admissions and loved my time on the college side but I felt drawn to move back home and have really enjoyed the transition to high school admissions for today I'm so pleased to be I hope you understand we're going to give it an overview of Gonzaga Prep as well as maybe some updates sell you some updates to the admissions process and also let you know whether you're super familiar with guns I already did student who's here who's the current Gonzaga Prep Bullpup or your brand new to the process where I'm hopeful that you will learn something tonight and then also whether you are a student total kudos to any students for login on their parents tonight or if your parents or if you have an 8th grader or a second grader My Hope Is that you'll find something that is relevant to provide some tips for how to prepare for that College Prep curriculum step that you can take now again whether you're on the stupid side or the parent side or family side that can help you be ready for Gonzaga Prep when you get here and then just a brief housekeeping will certainly have some time I'm for Q&A at the end but you're you're more than welcome to use the Q&A features here on zoom and so there's a Q&A section or you can also hit chat the chat button and send me a chat privately if you'd like to ask a question you free I'm we have a smell tonight that I should be able to connect if you do have any questions and so moving forward first the actually want to tell you a little bit or show you about Gonzaga Prep from students in their own words and so this is where to find your place video you'll know that this was filmed definitely found last fall so before covid-19 rate for most folks for a few people of the streaming has been a little bit of an issue so I'll make sure I follow up with a link to the video I'm if it's a little spotty for you but without further Ado here are our students easier I would want you to know that the teachers are here to just teach the subjects they're here because they truly appreciate I know your name they want to help you succeed in the class and be a better person for your community and I want to invest in making you a better person not only in the classroom but mind body and spirit are not just learn material and memorize it but to think intellectually and to apply that to your life was prepping a smaller school you can have a better relationship with the teacher that helps me the Bell the passion for Science and actually enjoy learning cuz I really enjoy is Spanish history and foreign language I really like fire program I really enjoyed start feed the art classes allow me to Branch out in a more creative way I also love AP US History and AP biology we have the academic success Center which tutoring to get tutored by fellow students give me access to AP classes called in the classroom and an excellent College counseling staff if you're looking for a school where you can be educated mind body and spirit you just can't get that anywhere else and debate drama Kansas Mysteries I was a part of the margins program this year I really really found my place the women's leadership class sophomore bassadors who drove committee and margins country in the fall and soccer the spring of your part of the football program prepares me to grow What's significant education is that it goes beyond the classroom is becoming lifelong Learners it's learning to help other people and make the world a better place Alliance. We all have a purpose everyone's valuable everyone has a different role is Gonzaga Prep so unique tuition assistance program and that pets are here I know that it's okay to be myself and friendly and they're all here to help you but they're on your side cuz I can prep has given me a place where I can grow as a learner and as a person the school makes an effort to build a community that last for a long time I found my place from my place I found my place at Gonzaga Prep by visiting g-prep. Com help pain like I said I love that video because so much of it is really the students in their own words and explaining the reasons why they love being part of this community whether or not you're already with our community and we're going to do kind of just Mega prep 101 and maybe explain a little bit more some of the things that the students talked about in that video I'm first and foremost just starting from facts and figures we are a current enrollment is 834 students in the 9th 12th grade we are looking for our class of 2025 so our next year's 9th grade class to probably be around 200 or so students aren't our little bit larger but about on par current freshman class the class of 2024 history this is our 133rd year of being a school we were originally found University Santa by the Jesuit school so we're one of the 62 Jesuit secondary schools in the United States in 1954 we sort of separated from Gonzaga University's campus and moved up here to our campus in the Logan neighborhood and we were an all-boys school then became a coed school in the late 70s and as far as our tradition have a strong connection not just with those other judge Espinosa the 27 colleges and universities that better were founded by Jesuits and so I mentioned that you may know like Georgetown or Boston College Santa Clara Michael monitor Seattle University those are also some Jesuit institutions any school that has a loyal love in the name is a Jesuit school and so we share a lot of the similar philosophies as these institutions that were founded by the Jesuit order which goes back almost 500 years as far as their tradition and philosophy of education and success in education I should say Jesuit philosophy I won't go into it it could be a whole other half an hour webinar to save you from that to spare you that I'll just explain kind of some of the key tenants but I think students mentioned in some ways in that video we talked a lot about a person Alice that's a very popular judge and it means we think of it as care for the whole student and what that means is we want our students certainly to be challenged within the walls of a classroom we want them to gain valuable critical thinking skills and writing skills play the academic preparation that they're going to need to be successful moving forward but we also understand that being a high-school student there's so much more to growth than just in the classroom so you heard some students talk about growing in Mind Body Spirit we know that on a soccer field students learn leadership skills and teamwork that are really really important that they learn public speaking when they're part of their debate team or part of our team club which is also called destination when they're part of the service group they learn how to give themselves and how to get to support their community and so that's part of meat we want to walk that path and Foster net gross of holistic and with our students little bit more about how we do that but one thing that many of the students mentioned do they all love her rattle off all the things that they're involved in and it's because we make it really easy for them to get involved we encourage them to get involved in to seek out the same we offer for instance we have more than 50 clubs I am the moderator of the book club so there's any book nerd out there I would love for you to come sounds like a crap enjoying the book club many of our faculty and staff and moderators of a club so it's another way for our caring and and very qualified faculty and staff to engage with their students areas that they are very passionate about a few of our teachers are very passionate about the fantasy football club club celebrate the love of cupcakes where else in the bullpups of the funny name but they also spell they have big sales and go to various nonprofits of their choice in athletics many of our Cuts many of our Sports to the degree that were able we tried to make them no cut Sports so that students can really get the offer part of a team and you don't have to have played a sports from the time that you were in third grade in order to participate meaningfully that's really what we talk about when we talk about a person Alice and having students really I'll talk a little bit about our curriculum here in a second but it is important to note that all of our classes are taught to the college prep level so we really are encouraging students are pushing them towards being prepared to encounter College classes when they graduate and many of them are going to be ahead of the game by the time they get to college and then there's that college-going culture it's not one of pressure it's not one of you have to get into an Ivy League school in order to be successful we certainly since you go that path every year but it's more of a place of really encouraging students to be open to what their next steps are we know the college isn't always the right path for every student but we want every be prepared and have as many options as possible they're they're after their 12th grade year and Beyond and then certainly a big part I talked a little bit about Jesuit education in the context of that holistic education but also in in terms of our emphasis on service and space for me allowing students to understand their Spiritual Development as a student here so we were obviously a Catholic school but does not Catholic institution about 70% of our students identify as Catholic kind of all over the board so we have many students who might be Christian but not necessarily Catholic we have students who are who are Jewish who maybe don't come from a religious tradition and everyone is welcome we're not at school the interest of converting anyone that we really aware obviously going to be teaching from Catholic values and Catholic perspective and certainly we have some suicide City Catholic one stay but that's not our Sally our mission is to convert all of our students I'm all talk a little bit about archaeology curriculum in a second care really what we find is true the Retreats that we offer in our campus ministry programs through the service opportunity opportunities that we offer as soon as you're able to form deep relationships and know each other and feel authentic with each other and we know that that's a lasting impact of a Gonzaga Prep education is a relationships that students form while they are here so I'm like I said I could spend like half an hour only on the Jesuit I could spend certainly a lot longer talking about Gonzaga Prep as a whole and if you have questions feel free to pop them in but I am going to move on to a little bit more about our I will say that if you're curious about maybe you want to hear directly from faculty or some students I encourage you to check out our virtual tour if you haven't had a chance to get it started by virtual self guided tour learn about our various academics and then see some photos of what what life looks like in a more normal year for us and so I do want to show you a little bit of the curriculum I know this is curiosity for a lot of families especially students 8th graders as you get to like one of my class is actually going to look like as I get in the high school now it's depending on what kind of device you're using this might show a little bit smaller I promised to share the slides for you with you afterwards so that you can take a look at it's a little bit too small but you'll notice here this is kind of laid out or it is laid out so that you can see the 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade I'm either essentially the class options within them and so the reason that the sconce in your 9th and 10th grade year is a little bit bigger is because you can certainly have some choice we really want students to focus on some core academic area I can speak from my time on the other side of the desk that has these are important foundational areas that often colleges are looking to as well so I'm making sure that that English Math Science History is it certainly solid and then we have these are not all of our subjects I just could not get them all on one page so I'll speak about language Fine Arts PE and electives on our next slide and so do we opportunity again to start and some Foundation all areas because we have students to join us from dozens of middle schools in their 9th grade year we actually offered kind of a range of particularly in our English area and our Mass area the way we like to think of it is our English 1B classes as being like intro to college prep are English 1 as college prep and honors as honors these are like tracks that you get stuck in by any means is option for students so that we can meet them where they are when they're starting in 9th grade and make sure that they feel successful from the get-go get into their 11th grade everybody up to that college prep level and that intro College Prep academic counselors at enter college counselor in our Counseling Center who will help your family kind of figure out what the best path is for your students and their actions get into their Junior and Senior year really where the curriculum opens up on and students gets a kind of dip their toe into different interest areas this is another part of college prep we want to encourage students to start discovering their passion because if there is specially for challenging them in the areas where they're most interested hopefully doesn't feel so much like Challenge and that sets them up for that's likely where a college major is probably going to shake out of that area if they're following the areas that are really it's all used like science as an example you can see we have a pretty limited opportunity for students in their first two years we only have a two-year limit we really encourage students to to go at least one year beyond that the part of it is there so many interesting opportunity for students in those at their Junior and senior years to explore some interest in anatomy and physiology they can work with mr. Holly who is also are on both of science faculty member he is trainer and so he has the opportunity to help students understand the concept of college in the high school class and he can help them understand and see how it is applied in a real life setting at is in a wrapping ankle of one of our soccer players that's part of that College Prep aspect to is beyond this is homework I have to do in order to get to the next step it's more of what are my interests how can I under and what I'd like to do next time I mentioned College in the high school anywhere you see those parentheses and kind of a college acronym those are are are college in the high school classes and that is essentially at the class that is hot here Gonzaga Prep by one of our faculty members but we have an agreement with those institutions that students can work their there since learning the credit that they would have gotten in that college class so those are transcripts that can be applied to start their future College curriculum 2nd year and then they get to pick from a number of different classes in their Junior and Senior year as well these are see ology classes so again they are going to be Todd especially the intro to Christian Life and our old and new testament classes are going to be shot from that Catholic perspective do again get to have that opportunity later on to look at some different theology elements I don't have any questions moving forward I do I want to forget the very important subjects of our our world language is fine arts PE and Alexis I'm foreign languages we have Spanish French and Latin I'm in honors options as well as college at credit options on all of those the Fine Arts and I'm sorry the font is so small I had to get real teanie there I'm in order to fit all of the options are older students take Fine Arts as typically to difference strip classes and they're welcome to it I use elective courses later on I sometimes hear from students that they are not good at Art and they're not good at drawing so they'd rather not take like a specific art class obviously here we have a number of both sort of Arts like painting sculpture photography classes in addition to Performing Arts like music and drama but I love when those students who think they're not good get to take photography one for the first time and are they going to dark room for the first time so we have an analog dark room and mr. boil kind of strips everything in our students no way about photography and starts then what's Bill so that they can learn but maybe their parents grew up on and how to develop pictures and I love hearing about the stories of students who kind of are like I can't draw and then become fascinated with the process of developing film really fascinating to be a lifelong hobby if it's pretty exciting on some other pieces all highlight here as an elective some all also some really exciting programs like our broadcasting program and computer science I did hear and broadcasting there are putting together a Christmas radio drama which I know our students are pretty excited to put on so lots of exciting things and and really fun Dynamics curriculum

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Webinar Clip - Gonzaga Prep 101

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