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Lick-Wilmerding High School

School rating 4 / 5 by

755 Ocean Avenue San Francisco CA 94112 United States
Day
9th to 12th
Gender
Coed

Academic

Lick-Wilmerding High School review by .

Lick-Wilmerding High School is known for its extensive shop program (wood, glass, metal, art, architecture)-- and it is definitely these classes that make Lick's academic program the most worth while. Many of my friends went on to pursue these skills beyond high school (my pre-med friend works as a welder at a metal shop during the summers, another is in Stanford's industrial design / engineering program) and they allowed us all an opportunity to find passion in something that might not be just in books. Architecture (which I study at Cornell) is the obvious example: Lick's brilliant architecture program sends of a couple students each year to the best B.Arch programs around the country. On the other hand, the regular academic classes are comparable to other high schools, as most graduates do end up pursuing normal liberal arts majors. I think that all humanities classes are considered honors-status no matter what, and the required English class is AP-level to give some idea of difficulty. But what can I say, like any other prep school I learned how to write a 5-paragraph essay, balance chemical equations and do some basic calculus. My passion was elsewhere-- in architecture-- but I can't say that for everyone else.

College Counseling

Honestly, I did not find Lick-Wilmerding's college counseling program to be wildly helpful, but that....

Sample insights on college counseling

  • They have contacts at most of the major universities and feel perfectly comfortable picking up the phone and advocating for a student to get accepted somewhere they feel is a good fit for that student. However, these counselors are certainly not magic bullets. They cannot guarantee that a student will get into an Ivy League university...
  • For those wishing to move on to Oxford or Cambridge, the provision is second-to-none. In the months running up to application and interview, every subject faculty offers classes (often run by former Oxbridge tutors) exploring further areas of their subject as well as offering advice on personal statements, interview technique and more...

Admissions - Getting Accepted

Lick-Wilmerding's admission process was very similar to the college admissions process. Yes, take the SSAT,....

Sample insights on admissions

  • For the interview, dress conservatively. Try to be very clean and put together. Also, I was a tour guide for two years and at the end of every tour, we were asked to evaluate the candidate so if you think the tour is not apart of the process, you are very wrong. Ask questions and be interested. Also, tip for the parents: the kids speak on the tour. Do not ask their questions for them...
  • Most younger siblings have an easy time in the admissions process. I can only think of one case of a younger sibling not being admitted. About half of the students who entered with me had come from public schools. The remainder came from private K-6 schools, or had transferred from other New York private schools The Elizabeth Morrow School and St. Bernard were two of the larger feeder schools...

School Life

Ah. Lick is located on Ocean Ave. It is a dangerous, beautifully dirty, cheap place. We had open campus and we ate really greasy fried from the place near the gas station during break. I went on dates to the parking lot of City College. We took the bus everywhere before we had cars. In this way, Lick is very, very different from SFUHS San Francisco University High School which is (picturesquely) located in Pac Heights land of the beautiful and wealthy. Not to say that Lick does not have students from that economic situation but the life we lived....

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