Uncommon Collegiate Charter High School

Located in the striking and historic old Boys High School building in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Uncommon Collegiate, a small 9-12 school, is part of the Uncommon network, one of the city’s largest operators of charter schools. According to the organization’s website, the schools in the network focus on maintaining high standards and on getting students, many of them low-income, into and through four-year colleges. Uncommon schools employ what has come to be called the “no excuses” approach, where learning is highly structured, children wear uniforms and students are expected to be orderly even during lunch, which is centered on “fueling up for the afternoon's lessons.”

By most statistical measures, the schools in the network perform as well as and often better than district schools in similar neighborhoods. In 2017, all 48 graduating seniors at Uncommon Collegiate received acceptances from four-year colleges, with the students receiving more than $1.3 million in scholarships, Kings County Politics reported.

Uncommon Collegiate uses a curriculum developed by Uncommon. It features 100 minutes of in-class literacy instruction for 9th- and 10th-graders. Students receive homework help and after-school tutoring, with struggling students required to attend classes on Saturday.

Most Uncommon Collegiate students attended middle school at Bedford Stuyvesant Collegiate, Brownsville Collegiate or Brooklyn East Collegiate, all part of the Uncommon network.

The school shares the building with Brooklyn Academy High School and Bedford-Stuyvesant Preparatory High School, both of which serve students who have struggled in traditional schools.

[photo by Uncommon Collegiate]

ADMISSIONS: The school has a very limited number of spaces available for 9th-graders who did not attend an Uncommon middle school. Those students are selected from a waiting list created when the children applied to 5th grade. No new students are admitted after 9th grade. (Gail Robinson, school website and web reports, February 2018)