University of Toronto Schools

The University of Toronto Schools is an independent secondary school in Toronto.

History

UTS is located in downtown Toronto. It was jointly founded by the province of Ontario and the University of Toronto in 1910 as a laboratory school of the Faculty of Education. As originally conceived, UTS was to be a collection of several schools, at least one of which was to be for females. Due to a shortage of funds, only one school—a boys' school—was initially built.

The school won the first ever Memorial Cup in 1919, as the best junior ice hockey team in the country.

In 1973, realizing that the rest of the school's original vision would never materialize, a decision was made to admit girls into the school. This represented a key turning point in the school's history.

Presently, the school is attended by students from grades 7 to 12, with approximately 104 students per grade. Each student is placed in one of four Houses (Althouse, Cody, Crawford and Lewis, all named after former Headmasters or teachers), and there are several competitive House events held throughout the year.

UTS is best known for its classes and specialized curriculi, said to be designed to challenge and educate at a higher level than at other public or independent schools, since, because UTSers must pass a rigorous entrance examination in order to attend, they are thought to be better able to grasp simple concepts and move on to more complex ideas. As a result, several higher-grade subjects are taught at lower grade levels, and each class is enriched with extra material and more in-depth discussions.

In April 1993, the New Democratic government of Ontario announced the withdrawal of public funding from the school, prompting the mobilization of all its constituencies to make up the loss. A large bursary fund now helps one in five UTS families, but as the tuition continues to rise, there are concerns that fewer eligible students will have access to the school in the future.

UTS boasts an impressive record of student achievement, both in academics and in extracurricular activities. With a university admission rate above 99 percent, UTS students are regularly admitted to top Canadian universities such as the University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia, Queen's University, the University of Waterloo, and McGill University, not to mention top American universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale. UTS is the two-time winner of the Reach for the Top National Trivia Championship, winner of the Ontario Student Classics Conference for 10 years running, and has produced international-calibre debaters and young scientists. In addition, UTS students organise the Southern Ontario Model United Nations Assembly, a United Nations simulation for high school students. UTS counts among its alumni two Nobel Prize winners (John C. Polanyi in 1986 for Chemistry, A. Michael Spence in 2001 for Economics), 20 Rhodes Scholars, and notables such as journalist and author David Frum, politician John Tory, medical leader John Evans,French horn player Jamie Summerville, journalist Jeffrey Simpson, impressario Dora Mavor Moore, publisher David Galloway, poet Dennis Lee and many other Canadian notables.

UTS remained a part of the Faculty of Education and its successor the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT) until the beginning of 2004, when a controversial agreement signed with the University established the school as an independent ancillary body within the University commonwealth.

Admissions

Entrance is by a two-stage competitive examination The first stage consists of a written exam. The top students are invited back for another exam and an interview. Candidates must be Canadian citizens or landed immigrants and may apply to enter either grade 7 or the upper school. Approximately 1000 applications are sent for the 104 available spots each year.

Facts

• Principal: Dr. Malcolm Levin
• Vice-Principal: Rick Parsons
• Enrollment: 624 (equal number of boys and girls)
• Staff: 50+, with 25% in possession of PhD and all with university degrees

External links

• University of Toronto Schools (http://www.uts.utoronto.ca)