JR Masterman Laboratory and Preparation School

So I came here because I found myself humming a song tonight that I sang in 5^th grade chorus back in 1994 with Dr. Goode. I only stayed for a couple of years (I suppose if I had it to do over I would have stayed through 12^th grade but that’s a different story…) but the experiences and the teachers I encountered here have stuck with me for a life time.
Also, I am in the 3^rd year of my PhD program in American Studies at William and Mary and I am planning on going into academia as a professor, so perhaps I can be one more «success» story lol.

Despite the physical appearance of the building, this school still holds up to its reputation as one of the première schools in the Philadelphia area. Recently awarded Blue Ribbon School status, President Obama delivered his annual Back to School Speech to an ecstatic student body on September 14, 2010. Goosebumps!
Teachers and administrative staff are top-​notch for the most part. The students DO work hard and the Home and School Association works to support academic and extracurricular activities.
To my knowledge, there’s rarely a discipline problem or any type of bullying. Instead, there’s heated classroom discussion and early morning EC activities. Who can complain?

You’d think that 8 years of school with all the same people would be way to much. You’d be right. Mostly. One great thing about Masterman is that you are with your fellow students day in and day out. So much that these people become your best friends and some of the friendships you make here will last longer than your can imagine.
As a moderately intelligent kid with overambitious parents, I had to take and pass a test in the fourth grade to get into this premier magnet school.
While I have no basis of comparison as to the quality of education at Masterman, I do know that attending this school exponentially increases your changes of going to a great IVY league college. About the top ¹⁄₃ of students here get accepted into several IVY League colleges. About half of those students go to UPenn (the IVY in your backyard). Masterman prides itself in stating that 100% of its students go to a 4 year college.
The reality is that Masterman will force all its students to go to accredited 4 year colleges, whether they wish to or not (a friend who wanted to go abroad was strongly discouraged from this option).
I’ve always thought that a preparation school would be responsible for two things: 1) getting it’s kids to good colleges, which Masterman excels at; and 2) preparing the kids for college, which, sadly, Masterman did not do as good of a job at.
I’m not sure if it’s exactly the classes, the depth of materials taught, or the lack of emphasis on retaining what is learned, but most of my friends and acquaintances felt as I did that Masterman did not prepare them well for college. Then again, it could have been me (how many kids do you know take school seriously?)
Part of the problem was the lack of funding. The only things I’ve dissected before going to college was an amoeba and a worm. When I got to Penn, I found that most of my fellow classmates had already done many of the labs in my basic science classes, while everything was all new to me. I’ve never seen most of the lab equipment, computers/​programs they used at college (we had old microscopes — so I at least knew what that was), and it was mildly embarrassing for me to ask questions that most of my classmates considered to be standard knowledge.
Part of it is that the school is so focused on getting everyone into the advanced courses that they sometimes forget to focus enough on the basics. This holds true for the trig through Calc 3 classes but not for algebra and geometry. Mr. Goldman (who taught algebra and geometry in 7^th and 8^th grade) would test us on both the advanced and basic problems — best math teacher ever.
That being said, students who go to Masterman are generally very successful and pursue stable, steady, successful careers. Many have gone into law, medicine, PhD programs doing really interesting things with obscure titles.
The only reason I seem critical is due to the fact that I am not sure what a preparatory school is suppose to do.
Going to Masterman made it not difficult to get into a great college. However, in terms of basic skills/​knowledge, I still get teased by my husband who went to a much lower ranked public school (same area) that had a LOT of funding from property tax dollars and he was able to somehow retain/​learn a lot more basic knowledge than I did. He also tutored me in chemistry, back in college (although if anyone’s ever had chemistry with Dr. Ranjini, they’d understand my willingness to block that part of my memories).

So it turns out that while I was sleeping, they have downsized the middle school and ramped up the high school. This is now the première public high school in the city, as opposed to the ‘class size of 13′ afterthought to Central that it used to be. So now you send your kid here in 5^th grade because it’s the only way they’ll get into the high school, as opposed to being a rest stop on their way to the mega-​magnets.