Baruch College Campus High School

Baruch College Campus High School offers rigorous academics in a pleasant and welcoming environment. Students are taught to write well and read classical and contemporary texts such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, Dante’s Inferno and Toni Morrison’s Beloved.

The school has a demanding but not overwhelming workload. Students say they routinely have two to three hours of homework a night, and more if a project is due. But the payoff is great: Nearly every graduate goes on to a four-year-college, including some very selective ones.

Group work and discussions are common in classes. Teachers are also experimenting with ways to encourage more independent learning. For instance, in math, students may tackle a new topic on their own as part of their homework before the teacher delves deeper into it in class.

Writing is emphasized in all subjects, and 11th-graders take a dedicated writing course where they draft a lengthy research paper and begin work on college application essays.  

History lessons are tied to contemporary issues, so, for example, students learning about the Holocaust also study more recent examples of extreme oppression and the ways people try to resist.

Lessons don’t shy away from difficult topics. Seniors research and draft policy papers on topics they’re interested in, such as rape on college campuses. In 10th-grade English, students read and write about the rights of citizens by studying the case of the Central Park Five (teenagers who were wrongly convicted of the 1989 rape of a jogger in Central Park) and the work done by the Innocence Project, which uses DNA to exonerate people wrongfully convicted of crimes.

In recent years the school has welcomed more students with special needs, which longtime principal Alicia Perez Katz says has lead to positive changes school-wide. “We’re an honors school by design, but we will still need to teach to a wide range of students.”

Toward that end, teachers and staff have taken steps to promote a more inclusive environment. The school secured a grant to acquire books that address topics and stories relevant to black, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ students. The school also adopted a “restorative justice” approach to discipline that minimizes suspensions and promotes positive behavior through conversation, reflection and corrective action. A lot of this takes place during small-group advisory classes, which students attend three times each week.

All students must perform 20 hours of community service each year. Some seniors “intern” in lower-grade classes by helping the teachers during lessons and running study groups with students. Many activities have a service focus, such as a benefit rap concert students put on to raise money for a high-poverty elementary school.

All students study Spanish, and there are multiple visual arts classes. After-school options include sports and more than 30 different clubs.

The school was originally founded in collaboration with Baruch College, but it is no longer on the college campus. Some perks remain. Students may earn both high school and college credit (from Baruch College) for a calculus class taught at the high school. They also have access to the Baruch College library and get priority registration for its College Now courses.

Baruch High School occupies five floors in a former office building, which used to house the School for the Physical City (now closed). The facilities are maintained nicely, but some classrooms are cramped. There’s a tiny all-purpose room that is used as a gymnasium. Students may leave the building for lunch.

A full-time college counselor meets individually with every junior. Graduates attend a broad range of schools, including CUNY and SUNY colleges as well as private options such as Columbia, New York University, Carnegie Mellon and Wesleyan.

SPECIAL EDUCATION: Roughly half the classes at the school follow the ICT (integrated co-teaching) model.

ADMISSIONS: District 2 priority. Typically all, or nearly all, of the school's seats are filled by District 2 students. Students who meet the minimum admissions criteria set by the school, which includes a review of students' grades, test scores and records of attendance, are selected by lottery. (Laura Zingmond, May 2018; admissions updated, October 2019)