Harvard-Westlake School

Harvard-Westlake School is an independent, co-educational university preparatory day school consisting of two campuses located in Los Angeles, California, (San Fernando Valley) with approximately 1,600 students enrolled in grades seven through 12. Its two predecessor organizations began as for-profit schools before turning non-profit, and eventually merging. It is not affiliated with Harvard University.

The school has two campuses, the middle school campus in Holmby Hills and the high school, or what Harvard-Westlake refers to as their Upper School, in Studio City. It is a member of the G20 Schools group.

Harvard School for Boys
The Harvard School for Boys was established in 1900 by Grenville C. Emery as a military academy, on the site of a barley field located at the corner of Western Avenue and Sixteenth Street (now Venice Boulevard) in Los Angeles, California. Emery was originally from Boston, and around 1900 he wrote to Harvard University to ask permission to use the Harvard name for his new secondary school, and received permission from the university's then-President, Charles W. Eliot. In 1911, it secured endorsement from the Episcopal Church, becoming a non-profit organization. In 1937, the school moved to its present-day campus at the former Hollywood Country Club on Coldwater Canyon in Studio City after receiving a $25,000 ($0 in current dollar terms) loan from aviation pioneer Donald Douglas. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Harvard School gradually discontinued both boarding and its standing as a military academy, while expanding its enrollment, courses, classes, teachers, and curriculum.

Westlake School for Girls
The Westlake School for Girls was established in 1904 by Jessica Smith Vance and Frederica de Laguna in what is now downtown Los Angeles, California, as an exclusively female institution offering both elementary and secondary education. It was so-named because it was near Westlake Park, now known as MacArthur Park. At the time, the school was a for-profit alternative to the already-established Marlborough School, which had been established as a non-profit before the turn of the century.

It moved to its present-day campus located on North Faring Road in Holmby Hills, California, in 1927. The school was purchased by Sydney Temple, whose daughter, Helen Temple Dickinson, was headmistress until 1966, when Westlake became a non-profit institution. The Temple family owned the school until 1977, with Mrs. Dickinson serving in an ex officio capacity. In 1968 Westlake became exclusively a secondary school.

Merger
As both schools continued to grow in size towards the late 1980s, and as gender exclusivity became less of a factor both in the schools' reputations and desirability, the trustees of both Harvard and Westlake effectuated a merger in 1989. The two institutions had long been de facto sister schools, and interacted socially. Complete integration and coeducation began in 1991.

Cheating scandal
In 2008, six sophomores were expelled and more than a dozen other students faced suspensions as a result of a cheating scandal.

Campuses
Currently, the school is split between the two campuses, with grades 7–9, the Middle School, located at the former Westlake campus in Holmby Hills and grades 10–12, the Upper School, located at the former Harvard campus in Studio City.

The Middle School completed a four-year modernization in September 2008, replacing the original administration building, the library, and the instrumental music building. The campus now features a new library, two levels of classrooms in the Academic Center, the new Seaver Science Center, a turf field, a new administration office, a putting green, a long jump pit, and a large parking lot. Another significant addition of the project was the Bing Performing Arts Center which features a two-level, 800-seat theater, a suite of practice rooms, a few large classrooms for band, orchestra, and choir classes, a black box theater, a dance studio, and a room with atomic pianos for composing electronic music.

Remnants of the former Middle School campus include the Marshall Center, which houses a gymnasium, weight room, and wrestling room, a 25 yd swimming pool and diving boards, an outdoor basketball court, and a tennis court. Reynolds Hall, an academic building which is home to history, foreign language, and visual arts classes, began a modernization effort in June 2014 to be completed by September 2015. The building was named Wang Hall in honor of two parents who donated approximately $5,000,000 to fund the project.

The Upper School features the Munger Science Center and computer lab; the Rugby building which houses the English department, 300-seat theater, costume shop, and drama lab; the Seaver building, home to the foreign language and history departments as well as administrative offices and the visitor lobby; Chalmers, which houses the performing arts and math departments, book store, cafeteria, sandwich window, and student lounge; Kutler, which houses the Brendan Kutler Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Independent Research and the Feldman-Horn visual arts studios, dark room, video labs, and gallery.

The athletic facilities include Taper Gymnasium, used for volleyball and basketball as well as final exams; Hamilton Gymnasium, the older gymnasium still used for team practices and final exams; Copses Family Pool, a 50-meter Olympic size facility with a team room and stadium for viewing events for the aquatics program; and Ted Slavin Field, which features an artificial FieldTurf surface and a synthetic track and is used for football, soccer, track & field, lacrosse, and field hockey. In 2007, lights were added to Ted Slavin Field. The school also maintains an off-campus baseball facility, the O'Malley Family Field, in Encino, California.

The Upper School campus also features the three-story Seeley G. Mudd Library and Saint Saviour's Chapel, a vestige from Harvard School for Boys' Episcopal days.

Tuition
In the early 1980s, annual tuition at the schools that now make up Harvard-Westlake was around $4,000; by 1983/1984, this figure surpassed $5,000    ($0 in current dollar terms).

For the 2018-19 academic year, the annual tuition was $38,400, the new student fee was $2,000, optional bus service was $2,450-2,550, and other costs such as books, meals, and activities were estimated to be $2,500-3,500.

Harvard-Westlake provided $11 million in financial aid in 2018. That year, approximately 20% of the student body received financial aid, which averaged $27,000.

Academic achievement
In 2017, 679 Harvard-Westlake students took 1,832 Advanced Placement tests in 28 different subjects, and 87% scored 3 or higher. In addition, the class of 2011 had 90 students out of approximately 280 receive National Merit recognition, with 28 students receiving consideration as National Merit Semifinalists.

Rankings

 * In 2002, Worth magazine ranked Harvard-Westlake number 34 out of thousands of secondary institutions across the country in sending children to top colleges and universities.
 * In 2008, Harvard-Westlake was ranked one of America's 25 best independent schools according to www.prepreview.com, an education ranking aggregator.
 * In 2008, Los Angeles magazine named Harvard-Westlake as one of the most elite prep schools in the Greater Los Angeles area.
 * In 2010, Forbes magazine ranked Harvard-Westlake 12th among the country's top prep schools.
 * In 2016, Niche ranked Harvard-Westlake 6th nationally among private schools.
 * In 2017, Niche ranked Harvard-Westlake 4th nationally among private schools.
 * In 2018, Niche ranked Harvard-Westlake 2nd nationally among private schools.

Athletics
Harvard-Westlake fields 22 Varsity teams in the California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section, as well as teams on the Junior Varsity, Club, and Junior High levels.

The school won back-to-back California tennis championships (1997–98). Additionally, the Harvard-Westlake Boys Tennis team reclaimed their CIF championship title in 2017. The 2015–16 football team shared the Angelus League championship with Cathedral High School, the first league championship in football for the school since 2006.

In 2009, the men's and women's fencing team won its seventh consecutive league title. In 2013, the baseball team won the CIF Southern Section championship and was named Baseball America’s Team of the Year. From 1991 to 2014, the school won 19 swimming and diving league titles, and one CIF championship. In 2016 the school won the Boys Basketball CIF State Division IV championship, and in 2017, Harvard-Westlake Boys Basketball won the Southern Section 1A championship. In 2017, the boys tennis team won the CIF-SS Division 1 championship.

Notable alumni

 * Jonathan Ahdout, actor
 * Elisa Albert, author
 * Dorothy Arzner, film director
 * Jillian Banks, musician
 * Candice Bergen, actress
 * Peter Bergman, actor
 * Steve Bing, film producer, philanthropist
 * Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, London
 * Brennan Boesch, MLB player
 * Autumn Burke, California State Assemblymember
 * Jessica Capshaw, actress
 * Mindy Cohn, actress
 * Jarron Collins, NBA player
 * Jason Collins, NBA player
 * Lily Collins, actress, model, host
 * Jamie Lee Curtis, actress
 * Gray Davis, Governor of California
 * Emily Deschanel, actress and model
 * Dominique Dunne, actress
 * Breck Eisner, tv and film director
 * Douglas Fairbanks Jr., actor
 * Beanie Feldstein, actress
 * Ayda Field, actress
 * Jack Flaherty, MLB player for the St. Louis Cardinals
 * Bridget Fonda, actress
 * Max Fried, MLB baseball player for the Atlanta Braves
 * Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles Mayor
 * Scott Garson, basketball coach, College of Idaho
 * Jean Paul Getty, Businessman
 * Lucas Giolito, MLB player for the Chicago White Sox
 * Russell Goldsmith, attorney, Chairman and CEO of the City National Bank
 * Jake Gyllenhaal, actor
 * Maggie Gyllenhaal, actress
 * Julia Hahn, Breitbart News reporter, special assistant to President Trump
 * H. R. Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff (1969-73)
 * Mark Harmon, actor, NCIS
 * Evan Harris, British Member of Parliament
 * Alex Israel, multimedia artist, writer, and eyewear designer
 * Jon Jaques, professional basketball player, assistant basketball coach (Cornell University)
 * Chad Kanoff, NFL player
 * Juliette Kayyem, author, TV analyst
 * Fran Kranz, actor
 * David Ladd, producer and actor
 * Phil LaMarr, actor, voice actor, stand up comedian
 * June Lockhart, actress
 * Billie Lourd, actress and daughter of Carrie Fisher
 * Jon Lovitz, actor
 * Myrna Loy, actress
 * Danica McKellar, actress, author
 * Alex Marlow, Breitbart News editor-in-chief
 * Jonathan Martin, retired NFL player
 * Elizabeth Montgomery, actress
 * Tracy Nelson, actress
 * Masi Oka, actor
 * Ethan Peck, actor, grandson of actor Gregory Peck
 * Elvis Perkins, singer, son of actor Anthony Perkins
 * Ben Platt, Broadway and film actor
 * Jason Reitman, Golden Globe-winning screenwriter, director
 * Sally Ride, astronaut
 * Josh Satin, retired major league baseball player
 * Andrea Savage, actress
 * Jason Segel, actor, screenwriter
 * Ben Sherwood, president of ABC News
 * Jacob Soboroff journalist and correspondent, NBC News and MSNBC
 * Tori Spelling, actress
 * Alex Stepheson, professional basketball player
 * Erik Swoope, NFL player
 * David Talbot, journalist, author, media entrepreneur
 * Stephen Talbot, documentary filmmaker, PBS Frontline
 * Shirley Temple, actress, diplomat
 * Dara Torres, swimmer and Olympic medalist
 * Nik Turley, baseball player
 * Dorothy Wang, socialite; actress, Rich Kids of Beverly Hills
 * Matthew Weiner, writer, creator of Mad Men
 * Douglas Wick, movie producer
 * Austin Wilson, baseball player
 * Jessica Yellin, journalist
 * Dean Zanuck, motion picture executive and producer

Notable faculty

 * Amy Alcott (born 1956) – Hall of Fame professional golfer
 * Caitlin Flanagan (born 1961) – American writer and social critic