Friends Select is an independent school with 501 students in grades pre-kindergarten through twelve. The school has three divisions, Lower (pre-kindergarten through 4th), Middle (5th through 8th), and Upper (grades 9 to 12). The Upper School has 185 students. Class size averages at12 students. Friends Select is a college preparatory school, with generally 100% of the graduating class attending college. Located in the heart of Philadelphia's downtown business and cultural districts, Friends Select School traces its history to the founding of the first Friends school in 1689. Friends Select has existed in its current form since 1833 and has been at its present location since 1885.

20% of Friends Select's students are African American, 8% are Asian or Asian American, 4% are Hispanic and 3% other. This group equals 35% of the school's population. 9% of the students are Quaker. There is also a diversity of economic backgrounds, largely because of a wide-ranging financial aid program.

Upper School
In the Upper School, a student must successfully complete four credits of English, three credits of history and mathematics and science, two credits of the same foreign language, one credit in religious thought, one credit in the arts, by the end of senior year, In the program, students find curricular incentives and supports that include advanced courses, independent studies, interdisciplinary humanities sequences in the ninth and tenth grades, and electives in each academic department.

Courses in the Upper School science department include, 9th grade chemistry, 10-11th grade biology, 11-12th grade physics and advanced courses in all of these disciplines. Science courses meet for three 40-minute lecture periods and one 80-minute lab period per week. Students learn through lecture, participation in a variety of laboratory investigations, group projects and by conducting original math/science research which is presented to the school community at an annual Math/Science Symposium.

Middle School
In the middle school, students are taught in non-graded, self-contained classes for grades 5 and 6. They move to a graded, departmentalized system for grades 7 and 8. All students study science, math, English, social studies, foreign language and arts. Unique features of the middle school include two large search projects a year, the interdisciplinary nature of the English and Social Studies, community service projects and advisories. This spring, the 7th grade search projects center around topics relating to math, science and sports. Students are responsible for collecting background information on a topic of their choosing, conducting a primary investigation and presenting their final report and findings to the rest of the school community.

Adapted from www.friends-select.org on April 16, 2002