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.

Saint Ignatius College Preparatory
Address
2001 37th Avenue San Francisco, California, 94116  United States
Coordinates	37°44′53″N 122°29′45.5″W / 37.74806°N 122.495972°W / 37.74806; -122.495972Coordinates: 37°44′53″N 122°29′45.5″W / 37.74806°N 122.495972°W / 37.74806; -122.495972
Information
Type	Private, Coeducational
Motto	Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam ("For the Greater Glory of God")
Religious affiliation	Roman Catholic; Jesuit
Established	1855 [1]
President	Fr. Robert T. Walsh, S.J.[2]
Principal	Patrick Ruff [2]
Asst. Principal	Carole Nickolai; Patrick Lynch; Donna Murphy [2]
Faculty	120 [1]
Grades	9-12
Enrollment	1,446 [3] (2008-2009)
Grade 9	386
Grade 10	355
Grade 11	351
Grade 12	354
Average class size	26 [1]
Student:teacher ratio	17:1 [1]
Campus	Urban
Campus size	11 acres [1]
Color(s)	Red and Blue
Athletics conference	West Catholic Athletic League
Team name	Wildcats
Accreditation(s)	Western Association of Schools and Colleges[4]
Average SAT scores	1215.60 out of 2400 [3]
Publication	Quill [3]
Newspaper	Inside SI [3]
Yearbook	The Ignatian [3]
School fees	$550 [1]
Tuition	$15,210 (2009-2010) [1]
Feeder schools	http://www.siprep.org/contact/directory.cfm?e=all
Dean of Students	Bill Gotch; Michelle Levine [2]
Admissions Director	Kevin Grady [2]
Athletic Director	Robert Vergara [2]
Website	http://www.siprep.org/

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. or colloquially as 'the prep.'

[edit] 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 the 1860s, the school built a new site, adjacent to the first, on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. In 1880, SI moved its campus to a location on Van Ness Avenue 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, a hastily constructed "temporary" wooden building, affectionately known as the "Shirt Factory", which housed the school for more than 20 years, from 1906 to 1929.

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 Father Harry Carlin moved SI to its current Sunset District campus. 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.

[edit] 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. Students are 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 2008, 562 SI students took 1,366 AP tests with a pass rate of 71.4 percent. The Prep ranks among the top three schools in Northern California and has ranked among the 20 schools in the nation for its AP success.

The average SAT score for the St. Ignatius class of 2008 was 1788, which is well above the national and state averages of 1511 and 1512. In 2008 every SI graduate went on to attend college, with just under 98% 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.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Student body

St. Ignatius attracts a student body from all parts of the Bay Area, including San Francisco city, Marin County, the East Bay, and San Francisco Peninsula. In 2005, the ethnic makeup of the student body was 48% White, 12% Filipino, 30% Asian, 6% Hispanic, 4% Black.^{[citation needed]} Religiously, about 94% of the student body is Christian (76% Roman Catholic, 18% other Christian). 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.

[edit] Athletics

Sports are a major component of student life at St. Ignatius with approximately 1000 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 nationally ranked. The men's rowing team has won the US Rowing Youth National Championships on three occasions, first in 1997 and in consecutive years between 2005 and 2006. In addition, the crew has competed in the world-renowned Henley Royal Regatta in England, where St. Ignatius won Princess Elizabeth Challenge Cup in 2006. 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 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 Division III Championship, setting a new bar for SI Football.^{[citation needed]}

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 one SI and one SH alumni who died in World War II. St. Ignatius is ahead in the series 40-19, with a record winning series of 12 years (1974-1985).

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 ten million dollar renovation and now features a Sprinturf synthetic 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.

[edit] Main Building

The main building is shaped as a letter H. One "leg" of the H holds all the low-side classrooms and the other holds all the high-side classrooms. Through the middle, there is an elevator and on each end of the "legs," there are staircases.

[edit] Student Center

The Student Center is a well-lit area with several benches for students to relax during recesses or lunch. From here, one can enter the large library (holds many books, Mac & PC computers), the Alpha Lab (first-floor computer lab with PCs), the gym foyer, stairs to the locker rooms, or the newly-built Columbus Piazza.

[edit] Notable alumni

• Daniel Callaghan, 1907, USN Rear Admiral, WWII Medal of Honor recipient at Guadalcanal on the USS San Francisco
• William Callaghan,^[5] 1914, USN Vice Admiral and first captain of the USS Missouri (BB-63)
• Charlie Silvera, 1942, New York Yankee catcher^{[citation needed]}
• George Moscone, 1947, Mayor of San Francisco, assassinated, 1978
• Leo T. McCarthy, 1948, California Lieutenant Governor
• Gordon Getty, 1951, Billionaire and businessman
• Jerry Brown, 1955, CA Attorney General, CA Secretary of State, Governor of CA, and Mayor of Oakland, CA
• Mike Nevin, 1961, San Mateo County politician
• Paul Otellini, 1968 President of the Intel Corporation
• Peter Casey, 1968 Producer of Cheers and Frasier and a writer on The Jeffersons
• Dan Fouts, 1969, NFL Quarterback, San Diego Chargers, Hall of Famer
• Ron Lagomarsino, 1969, Director, thirtysomething, Driving Miss Daisy
• Len Salvemini, 1971, Professional soccer player; All American soccer player at United States Air Force Academy
• Kevin Shelley, 1973, California Secretary of State
• Bartlett Sher, 1977, Tony Award winning director, South Pacific; artistic director Intiman Playhouse
• Derek Lam, 1984, Fashion Designer^{[citation needed]}
• Al Madrigal, 1989, Comedian
• Sean Elsbernd, 1993, Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
• Gwendoline Yeo, 1994, Hollywood actress
• Igor Olshansky, 2000, NFL defensive end, Dallas Cowboys
• Zac Lee, 2005, NCAA quarterback, Nebraska Cornhuskers

[edit] See also

• San Francisco high schools

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• St. Ignatius College Preparatory website