Five students at New Covenant Schools have earned the designation of AP Scholar by the College Board in recognition of their exceptional achievement on the college-level Advanced Placement Program (AP) Exams.

The College Board’s AP Program offers students the opportunity to take challenging college-level courses while still in high school, and to receive college credit, advanced placement, or both for successful performance on the AP Exams. Only 18 percent of the more than 1.3 million high school students in 16,000 secondary schools worldwide who took AP Exams performed at a sufficiently high level to merit the recognition of AP Scholar. Since only nine NCS students took AP exams in May 2006, over 50% were awarded AP Scholar status.

Students took AP Exams in May 2006 after completing challenging college-level courses at their high schools. Students qualified for the AP Scholar Award by completing three or more AP Exams with grades of 3 or higher (5 is the maximum score). The AP Scholars at New Covenant, all members of the recently graduated Class of 2006, are Drew Flowers, Emma Sattler, Caleb Trittipoe, and Ruth Tucker. Jessica Bohannon, a part-time student at NCS last year, was also named an AP Scholar. New Covenant currently proctors AP exams in calculus, biology, composition, and literature.

New Covenant Schools is a college preparatory environment and follows a classical model of education that is rooted in the liberal arts. The curriculum is rigorous at all levels and students transferring from other schools both public and private generally require a period of adjustment. The ERB CTP4 is administered annually, and test scores are consistently far above the national average.

Class sizes are small and there is a high level of personal attention to students. The faculty is well qualified, with all faculty members holding at least the B.A. or B.S. and nearly half holding the M.A. Classical languages are required for all students from kindergarten through high school, and students in grades 7-12 typically take four years of Latin and/or Greek. Formal instruction in logic is given in grades 7 through 9 and classical rhetoric is taught in grades 10 through 12.

The Grammar School (K-6th grade) is designed to bring students to a mastery of basic skills in the disciplines of reading, arithmetic, science, art, music, history, Bible and Latin. At this level we seek to teach students not only what to know, but how also how to learn. As students progress to the School of Dialectic (middle school) and Rhetoric (high school) they are expected to acquire and use logic and rhetorical skills in all areas of the curriculum. They are urged to think deeply and defend their positions rationally when answering questions in any discipline across the curriculum. The senior year of high school is completed by researching, writing, and defending a senior thesis before the faculty and parent community.

There is only one academic track throughout the schools. The level of work is generally equivalent to honors standards. Since our course of study is guided by the classical tradition, we typically do not teach directly to the Advanced Placement standards; however, many students sit for the AP Exams in many disciplines, and the pass rate is extremely high. Students who have successfully passed these exams have earned credit at colleges that recognize the AP standards. New Covenant classes are graded on a percentage basis and academic honors are as follows: Summa cum Laude, GPA of 4.0, Magna cum Laude, at least 3.5, and cum Laude, at least 3.0. With the rigor of the curriculum, semester and yearly honors are difficult to attain and therefore highly prized.

Grade point averages and class rank are based on a straight 4.0 point scale and it is impossible to achieve above a 4.0 GPA. Semester grades of 94 and above receive 4.0 points; 87 to 93, 3.0 points; 78 to 86, 2.0 points; 70 to 77, 1.0 point. Grades below 70 receive neither points nor credit. Quality points are assigned for academic and extra curricular activities on a similar scale. Graduates of New Covenant Schools typically go on to college or post secondary schooling, and regulary earn significant merit scholarships. Our students have been accepted at many schools around the country. Click here for a complete list.