One normally associates slopes with the winter months. Not so for the Young Scholars who attended classes at Shipley this summer. Instead of grabbing their suits and heading for the beach, these talented students from Philadelphia schools reached for their graphing calculators and backpacks to attend four weeks of classes at Shipley.

Led by members of Shipley’s faculty, nineteen rising 8th and 9th graders spent part of their summer vacations learning how to calculate the slope of a line, writing and performing plays, determining the pH of a potato, and conjugating verbs in Spanish.

The Young Scholars Program at Shipley is an offshoot of the Young Scholars Fund, which is directed by H.L. Ratliff of St. Joseph’s Prep in North Philadelphia. The program is designed to introduce talented students from inner city schools to top independent schools, while providing an enriching and challenging academic curriculum.

Shipley’s participation in the Young Scholars Program over the last six years has helped to attract students from diverse backgrounds to the School. In fact, six of this year’s Scholars are enrolled at Shipley for the upcoming school year. The Program celebrated a milestone this year, when the first two participants graduated from Shipley in May.