College is not for everyone (especially in high school). But for the right students, bringing together a vibrant independent school education and access to a robust college curriculum is the perfect combination.
Which students benefit from this blend of secondary and post-secondary education? What independent schools would be well served to consider partnerships with colleges or universities? How do you ensure this kind of partnership will work for the institutions and for the students? Much like the college search process, fit really matters.
New Garden Friends School (NGFS), a preschool-12 day school with 280 students in Greensboro, North Carolina, embarked on formalizing such a partnership with nearby Guilford College during the 2013-2014 academic year. This arrangement now allows New Garden Friends School students to enroll in courses at Guilford College as part of their NGFS tuition and Guilford College employees' children to receive a tuition discount at NGFS.
News sites, blogs, and listserves are flooded with lively debates about which "college level" high school courses provide greater advantages. Rather than deciding between Advanced Placement courses and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, New Garden Friends School has chosen this third path — partnership with a college — because of all that it offers.
Giving well-prepared high school students the opportunity to enroll in college courses is pedagogically appealing. Students not only experience the rigor of higher education but also what it means to physically be in a post-secondary academic setting. By navigating college courses, students gain valuable experience with collegiate office hours, the structure and sequence of these classes, and increased expectations for writing and research. This experience presents another dimension to being holistically prepared to thrive after walking across the stage at graduation.
Additionally, students and their families recognize how positive outcomes in college courses can strengthen college admission applications. Science labs and other infrastructure exist in a college environment that few independent schools can replicate. Some families are attracted to the possibility of paying for fewer college credits in the future.
At New Garden Friends School, students gain all of these benefits without losing the important opportunities and structures that exist in the final two years of an independent school education. Although this arrangement creates logistical complications in building a master schedule, NGFS has taken on the complexity because it means students can continue to participate in drama productions, compete in athletics, contribute to service activities, and remain truly immersed in the school community.
We endeavor to know students well, provide a rigorous college preparatory curriculum, and advise our students thoughtfully. Our school also faces the same reality of all small independent schools: meeting students' varied needs while controlling costs. We seek to maintain what makes the school special as we meet these challenges. Access to the vast course catalog of Guilford allows NGFS to provide breadth and depth in course offerings within a framework that is mission-aligned and expense-constrained.
Although we are separate institutions, New Garden Friends School and Guilford College have an intertwined history that began when NGFS was founded as a racially inclusive school community in 1971 by two Guilford College alumni and administrators, Jim Newlin and Bruce Stewart. The lower school operates on land leased from the college. Yet beyond this long-term lease, no formal institutional connection had existed prior to this partnership.
On academic, pedagogical, and cultural levels, NGFS and Guilford share a great deal. Both have close-knit, intellectually stimulating communities. Guilford was included in Loren Pope's original book and subsequent editions of Colleges that Change Lives. NGFS school leaders, including myself, were enthusiastic about upper school students taking courses with caring professors in an environment that upholds the same Quaker principles. Guilford's professors have had significant experience working with talented high school students. Guilford has its own high school students enrolled in the Early College at Guilford and is a member of the National Consortium of Early College Entrance Programs.
When I arrived as head of NGFS, providing upper school students with the opportunity to study at Guilford College was an important priority. Although NGFS students had occasionally taken college courses at Guilford, no formal relationship existed. To be successful, an agreement had to be structured as a win-win-win, benefiting New Garden Friends School, Guilford College, and NGFS students. As a Guilford alumnus, I eagerly reached out to Dr. Kent Chabotar, then Guilford's president, soon after I became head of school at NGFS. As the details were being finalized, Chabotar ensured the partnership had the full support of his successor, Dr. Jane Fernandez.
Through a series of collaborative discussions we were able to develop a framework that met the objectives for both institutions and our students. NGFS tuition includes enrollment in up to two courses each semester of a student's junior and senior years. The relationship allows NGFS to manage its numbers of small section course offerings while serving students who are ready to be challenged and inspired by a breadth of subjects NGFS cannot offer as a modestly-sized upper school, including courses like business law, philosophy, psychology, international relations, sociology, computer programming, exercise and sports studies, and an array of foreign language options. Students who are prepared can also explore subjects more deeply by enrolling in post-secondary level courses in mathematics, science, English, history, and the arts.
The relationship between NGFS and Guilford is not only neighborly. NGFS pays Guilford per course at a discounted rate as part of the agreement, providing Guilford marginal revenue. In addition to the immediate revenue, NGFS students are strong potential applicants for traditional undergraduate admission to Guilford.
The agreement has another important aspect. Guilford faculty and staff have long been members of the NGFS parent community, but until this point NGFS had not provided them with any special financial assistance. Today, Guilford faculty and staff can take advantage of a reduced tuition rate and can also apply for need-based aid to NGFS. This arrangement not only deepens institutional connections, it builds bridges that extend into our schools' classrooms at all levels.
NGFS works closely with students to determine who will be best served by taking one or two courses a semester at Guilford during their junior and senior years and who might benefit from other curricular offerings on campus, online, or through internships. Selecting the right courses is just the first step in the process. NGFS has a valued liaison at Guilford College in Dr. Erin Brownlee Dell. She is the assistant academic dean at Guilford, a NGFS parent, and a graduate of Wilmington Friends School. Dell deeply understands the needs of NGFS students and both institutions.
Creating a path for high school students to navigate a college experience in their final years at an independent school is a tremendous opportunity. It won't be right for every student or every school, but collaborating with a well-aligned partner will offer avenues of exploration that are largely unavailable for many students. When the fit is right, for students and for the institutions, the opportunities can be enriching and mutually beneficial.