The proving years
Four years to find out what you can do when you work at an advanced level and the people around you inspire you to try your best.
The Upper School program is rigorous by design. The curriculum prepares students the admissions process and the intellectual life of college. Advanced coursework is available in every discipline. The college counseling program is integrated into the academic advising relationship.
The community is one in which academic ambition is the norm and intellectual risk — defending an unpopular argument, changing your mind publicly, producing work that fails before it succeeds — is what serious students do.
Academic program
The Upper School academic program is organized around a core requirement sequence in Grades 9 and 10, followed by a structured elective curriculum in Grades 11 and 12. Every student completes the core sequence before choosing advanced coursework.
The core sequence includes four years of English, four years of mathematics through at least pre-calculus, three years of laboratory science, three years of history including a full year of United States history, and three years of a world language. Physical education and a wellness seminar are required in all four years.
Advanced coursework in Grades 11 and 12 takes two forms. Clarebourne offers AP courses in thirteen subjects — the full range of humanities, sciences, and mathematics — for students who want a nationally standardized advanced credential. We also offer Clarebourne Advanced Seminars in eight subjects — smaller, discussion-intensive courses that provide a more rigorous intellectual experience for students who intend to pursue those disciplines seriously in college. Students choose between these pathways in consultation with their advisor and the relevant department chair.
The college counseling program begins formally in Grade 10 with a series of advising conversations about academic trajectory, college environment preferences, and the relationship between the two. By Grade 11, every student has a dedicated college counselor who knows their academic record, their extracurricular life, and their sense of what they are looking for after Clarebourne.
College counseling
Clarebourne’s college counseling program begins with one core question: what kind of life do you want to build, and what kind of education will prepare you for it?
A Thursday in Grade 11
8:55
Advisory ends. A Grade 11 student has a free period first — she spends it in the college counseling office, because she has been thinking about something her counselor said last week and wants to talk it through. The student leaves with a clearer sense of what she is looking for in a college environment.
10:05
Second period is AP Chemistry. The class has been running a two-week independent experiment, and today is the day results are presented. The student presenting has results that don’t match her hypothesis. Dr. Reyes asks the class what went wrong. Three students have theories. The student presenting defends her methodology against each one. By the end of the period she has identified the likely source of error and proposed a redesign.
1:15
After lunch there is an Advanced Seminar in American Literature — a class of nine students discussing a Toni Morrison novel they have been reading for two weeks. Dr. Quamino has not lectured in three days. The students have been leading the discussion themselves, with Dr. Quamino intervening only when an argument needs to be pushed further or a claim needs to be evidenced.
That moment — when students themselves frame the discussion, discover new areas of inquiry, and support their positions confidently in a group setting — is what four years of Clarebourne Upper School is designed to produce.
Three experiences that make the Upper School distinctive
Clarebourne Advanced Seminars
Clarebourne’s own advanced course sequence — offered alongside AP in Grades 11 and 12 — is built around small enrollment, primary source reading, and sustained written argument. Seminars cap at twelve students. Every seminar requires a substantial research paper in addition to regular short writing. For students who intend to study humanities, social sciences, or sciences seriously in college, we believe the seminar format produces more rigorous preparation than the AP survey model. Students who prefer the AP credential may choose it and they’ll discuss the difference with their advisors.
Integrated college counseling
College counseling at Clarebourne begins in Grade 10 and is conducted by the student’s academic advisor in partnership with a dedicated college counselor as an extension of the advising relationship. The counselor-to-student ratio in Grades 10–12 is 1:28. The program results in a college list that reflects what each student actually needs, not what would look best on the school’s matriculation data. We publish the full list — every institution, every year — because we believe families deserve to see where Clarebourne graduates actually go.
The Senior Thesis
Every Clarebourne senior completes a fifteen to twenty page independent research thesis in the first semester of Grade 12. Students choose their own question, in any discipline or across disciplines, in consultation with a faculty sponsor who supervises the research. The thesis is submitted in December and presented orally to a three-person faculty panel in January.
The requirement was introduced in 2018 in response to a specific observation: that Clarebourne seniors were arriving at college technically proficient but without the experience of having produced a substantial piece of independent intellectual work. The Senior Thesis is designed to close that gap — to give every graduate the experience of identifying a question that genuinely interests them, pursuing it seriously over four months, and defending their conclusions.
The panels take approximately forty-five minutes per student. They are rigorous. They are also, consistently, among the most energizing events in the Upper School calendar — the moment when four years of education becomes visible, and when students discover that they are capable of more than they thought.
Recent thesis topics have included an analysis of rhetorical strategy in Reconstruction-era political speeches, an original mathematical proof in combinatorics, a comparative study of immigration policy in the United States and Canada since 1990, and a historical examination of the role of women in the Newport Quaker community in the eighteenth century.
The Senior Thesis is the program we are most proud of and the one that Clarebourne graduates most consistently cite as the experience that best prepared them for college.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a student struggles with their workload?
At Clarebourne, we view these moments as a chance to prepare students to handle problems in college.
Because students work closely with advisors, they typically feel comfortable discussing challenges openly as they arise. Advisors identify areas where students need more individualized support from teachers.
What opportunities exist for students interested in STEM?
Students interested in pursuing STEM at the college level may choose to take an Advanced Seminar in math, programming, or physics. Course content often varies according to the abilities and interests of each cohort.
These courses are open to juniors and seniors, so that students also have the option to take AP classes.