805-684-4127
Fax: 805-684-8940

http://www.cate.org

Enrollment:
Boarding: 220
Day: 47

Male: 130
Female: 137

2009-2010 Costs:
Tuition:
Boarding: $42,600
Day: $32,750

The Cate School
Carpenteria, CA 93013

Overview
Cate was founded as a boys' school in 1910 by Curtis Wolsey Cate, a Harvard graduate who journeyed west to teach. Girls were admitted for the first time in 1981; they currently make up 50 percent of the student body.

Visitors often describe the Cate campus as one of the most beautiful settings imaginable. The campus, called the Mesa by everyone at the School, is located on 150 acres between the Santa Ynez mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It overlooks the Channel Islands and the Carpinteria Valley; the city of Santa Barbara is 12 miles to the north. Its location offers all students the special opportunity to take advantage of both outdoor and urban activities with equal facility. For example, hiking, surfing, rock-climbing, and sailing are as accessible as the theaters and museums of Santa Barbara.

A not-for-profit organization, Cate School is directed by a board of 34 trustees, including 2 faculty advisory trustees, 15 alumni, and 1 Alumni Council President. The endowment is currently valued at $43 million. This generous support comes from an alumni body of more than 2,500, friends of the school, and current students. Forty percent of the alumni participate in the Annual Fund, and a remarkable 91 percent of current families support the Annual Fund as well.

Cate is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and is affiliated with the National Association of Independent Schools, the California Association of Independent Schools, the Western Boarding Schools Association, the Cum Laude Society, the California Interscholastic Federation, A Better Chance, and the Secondary School Admission Test Board.

Academic Life/Programs of Study
Through a challenging program that prepares adolescents to meet high expectations, Cate enables each student to grow intellectually and emotionally, to act purposefully and morally, and to lead an active, healthy life.

The specific purposes of the curriculum, in order of priority, are to stimulate curiosity and interest, to develop the skills needed for the effective continuation of learning, to encourage intellectual independence, to foster the responsible use of knowledge and ability, and to engage students in a range of scholarly pursuits, including the arts, English, foreign languages, mathematics, science, computer science, human development, and social studies.

The order of these purposes is important. It reflects a set of priorities that is understood by every teacher and is inherent in the design of every course. At Cate, of more importance than what students learn is that students come to understand how to learn. Throughout the four years, a student develops both the skills and the desire to continue learning.

Graduation requirements are generally as follows: Foundation Arts, plus either a yearlong arts course or two semester-long arts courses; an English course per year; 3 years of a foreign language (French, Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese) or, for students entering with advanced standing through the sophomore year, the successful completion of a third-year foreign language course; a history course in each of the first two years and U.S. history in the Upper School (grades 11 and 12); a mathematics course per year through the junior year, with the final course determined by the level at which the student entered Cate; physics, chemistry, and biology. Cate has a four-year, sequential, nationally recognized Human Development Program consisting of Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Seminars and the Senior Teaching Assistant Program.

In addition to this core curriculum, students may choose from electives in all disciplines. Examples include sculpture, creative writing, anthropology, computer programming, marine biology, and Asian studies. Advanced Placement preparation is offered in all disciplines.

A typical class contains 12 students, and the student-faculty ratio is about 6:1. The academic year is divided into two semesters of two marking periods each, and parents are apprised of student progress in the early fall, as well as at the end of each marking period.

Campus Life and Activities
Cate's enrollment of 265 included 58 freshmen, 71 sophomores, 71 juniors, and 65 seniors. This total included 45 day students. Twenty-one states and thirteen other countries are represented, and 38 percent of the boarding students are from outside California. The School seeks to enroll a geographically and socioeconomically diverse student body.

The goal of the School's policies and practices is to provide students with a set of community standards that define daily expectations, set limits for social behavior, and foster a sense of responsibility for the School and themselves. The breaking of a major school rule results in the convening of the Disciplinary Committee, which considers all circumstances. Students may be separated from the School for a first violation.

Athletics
Athletics are an integral part of the overall program at Cate, and each student participates in one of the many after-school options offered in each of the three seasons. The entire program is characterized by participation and a general commitment to excellence. For the competitive athlete, Cate offers an extensive slate of team sports and competes against a range of public and private schools, including many California Interscholastic Federation schools from the Los Angeles area. Interscholastic offerings for both boys and girls include cross-country, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, track, volleyball, basketball, sailing, squash, and water polo. Baseball is offered for boys, and softball is offered for girls. Intramural options for boys and girls include aerobics, sailing, squash, surfing, tennis, and weight training.

Facilities include the Fleischmann and Sprague Gymnasiums, with squash courts, basketball courts, three athletics fields, a red cinder quarter-mile track, baseball and softball diamonds, a swimming pool, eight tennis courts, and a weight-training room.

Facilities and Services
Cate offers extensive facilities in every academic area. The Seeley G. Mudd building, erected in 1984, provides an exceptionally well designed facility for instruction in the laboratory sciences. The Keck Computer Lab has Macs, Power Macs, and Pentium PCs. In addition, Cate maintains a schoolwide network with ports in the library, in all dorm rooms and faculty apartments, and in most classrooms and offices. This network provides access to e-mail, file servers, and the Internet. In all, there are more than fifty microcomputers networked on the Mesa. The Arts Center offers modern facilities for a full range of fine and dramatic arts, including a computer graphics and video workshop. The Ceramics Barn is the latest addition to the arts facilities. The McBean Library contains a selection of 110 current periodicals and open stacks for 30,000 volumes.

Central to any boarding school experience is the quality of life in the dormitory—the basic unit of Cate's residential program. The average dormitory houses 20 students, and each dorm is supervised by 3 faculty members. Seniors are distributed evenly throughout the campus and play an important leadership role in developing the spirit of cooperation and the sense of being part of an extended family that typifies the Cate dormitory. The Cate Health Center is staffed by a nurse, who resides on campus. Meals are served in a central dining commons. One night a week is reserved for formal dinners, while the rest of the meals are served cafeteria-style.

Faculty, Advisors and College Placement
The Cate faculty includes 68 full- and part-time members (30 women and 38 men). The Headmaster, Benjamin D. Williams IV, who has a B.A. from Williams College and a master's degree from Brown University, was appointed in 1997. The faculty is firmly committed to the residential program, and therefore 95 percent live on campus. The advising system is based on the constant contact that occurs formally and informally between classes, at meals, and on the athletics field between students and their faculty advisers. The adviser is assigned by student preference and helps a student to understand and handle personal and academic problems. In addition, the School retains a professional counselor on the faculty, who works on an individual basis with students to help them understand and deal effectively with personal issues.

The college-counseling program has two major objectives: to help provide students with a range of college choices and to help them clarify these choices in view of their own academic and personal strengths. The result is students who are solidly supported and well informed. They are attending the following colleges and universities: Barnard (8), Bates (5), Berkeley (22), Brown (4), Colgate (5), Columbia (11), Duke (8), Georgetown (4), Harvard (5), Middlebury (5), MIT (6), NYU (10), Stanford (9), UCLA (8), Vanderbilt (4), Yale (6), and the Universities of California, San Diego (8); Michigan (6); and Pennsylvania (7).

Extracurricular Opportunities
Cate believes strongly that education extends beyond the classroom. An extensive Community Service Program encourages students to tutor in local public elementary schools, work with physically and developmentally disabled children and adults in foster homes in the local community, or teach swimming to handicapped students. The School also participates in the Los Niños Program, taking frequent weekend trips to help poverty-stricken children of Tijuana, Mexico. Clubs and organizations include Amnesty International, the California Math League, the Environmental Club, Jazz Band, Mock Trial Competition, and Odyssey of the Mind Competition. Other activities include the school yearbook, newspaper, and literary magazine.

The Student-Faculty Senate is responsible for determining major school policy. The senate consists of 13 students and 5 faculty members and is responsible for formulating ideas, reviewing policy, and representing student and faculty opinion on all aspects of school life.

Daily Life
Classes meet five days a week and on alternate Saturdays in 45-minute periods, with a shortened day on Wednesday and Saturday. Classes, which begin at 8, are preceded by daily chores that range from kitchen duty to dormitory and campus cleanup. Athletics are scheduled at the end of the academic day and before dinnertime. Study hours take place every day, except Saturday, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. Underclass students must return to their dorms at 10:30, but seniors may remain out until 11. One day each week the School gathers for a short evening assembly, which involves student and faculty participation as well as presentations by outside speakers.

Weekend Life
Most weekend activities are determined by a student activities committee and a faculty adviser. In addition to interscholastic sports, activities might include dances, beach trips, activities in Santa Barbara, plays or concerts in Los Angeles, local day hikes, movies on campus, or special events such as the Cate Fair, a Los Niños trip, dramatic productions, or the Talent Show. In addition, eight times a year the entire weekend is reserved for more extensive activities such as kayaking, sailing, fishing, skiing, and camping. These weekends also provide the opportunity to visit cultural centers outside of the immediate area.

Admissions, Cost and Financial Aid
Financial aid is based on need. Applications for admission and for financial aid are considered independently. Cate provides financial assistance to approximately 70 students each year from a budget of $1,402,000.

Most students enter Cate in the ninth or tenth grade. Each year, a limited number of exceptionally well qualified students are admitted into the eleventh grade. It is unusual for the School to have an opening for a new twelfth grader. The Admission Committee considers a student's previous record, recommendations of teachers, personal references, scores on the Secondary School Admission Test, extracurricular interests and strengths, and impressions and information obtained in the personal interview. The committee strives to enroll able students who bring a wide variety of talents, skills, interests, and backgrounds to the Cate community.

Application Timetable
Personal interviews should be scheduled and applications should be filed in the fall or early winter. The Office of Admission is open from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 8 a.m. until noon every other Saturday. Priority is given to those candidates who complete the application procedure, including the personal interview, by February 1. Notification of the Admission Committee's decisions on applications completed by that date are mailed on March 10. Acceptance to Cate assumes that a student will satisfactorily complete the current school year.

Admissions Correspondence
Director of Admission
Cate School
Carpinteria, California 93014-5005
Telephone: 805-684-4127 Ext. 217
Fax: 805-684-2279
E-mail: admission@cate.org
http://www.cate.org