The Beacon School - In-school Requirements

In-school Requirements

Beacon's in-school requirements have been significantly more stringent than those of comparable New York City public high schools since well before its forced acceptance of the Regents Exam system. There are still critics who complain that Beacon's acceptance of that system hindered, not helped, its overall college-preparatory initiatives. Some argue that the Regents Exams are standardized tests that do not tailor themselves to the particular academic performance strategies and attitudes of each student the way portfolio-based systems do.

Though the yearly schedule is officially broken up into two semesters, these are not standard United States college semesters; rather, after one is over, students return to their previous classes with the same teachers for the second semester if it is a yearlong class or if they are freshmen or sophomores. Electives such as art or drama change each semester as long as the student has chosen to take one different than the one they were previously taking. In junior year, there are science courses, such as immunology, that last only one semester. The student has the opportunity to take another science the next semester. Chemistry is a year-long course, known as Advanced Chemistry, and is taken as a precursor to AP Chemistry.