# Baltimore City College

Baltimore City College, known colloquially as City, City College, and B.C.C., is a college preparatory school with a liberal arts focus and selective admissions criteria located in Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in October 1839, B.C.C. is the third-oldest active public high school in the United States. City College is a public exam school and an International Baccalaureate World School at which students in the ninth and tenth grades participate in the IB Middle Years Programme while students in the eleventh and twelfth grades participate in the IB Diploma Programme.
The school is situated on a 38 acres (0.15 km$^2$) hilltop campus located in the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore. The main campus building, a designated National Historic Landmark, is constructed of granite and limestone in a Collegiate Gothic architectural style and features a 200-foot-tall (61 m) Gothic tower.

## History

In response to increasing public pressure due to the changing needs of Baltimore's trade and commercial classes, political leaders introduced legislation authorizing establishing a high school. After a long spirited public controversy and debate over the values of higher public education beyond the grammar (elementary) school level / modern eighth grade. The resolution establishing the new school was finally unanimously passed by the Baltimore City Council on March 7, 1839, and was signed into law by then Mayor Shepard C. Leakin. "The High School" opened with 46 pupils under the direction of Professor Nathan C. Brooks,(1809–1898), a locally noted classical educator and poet, who also served as the first principal, the first head of school of a new type of higher institution in Baltimore's developing public education system since its establishment in 1829, a decade before. "The High School" opened on October 20, 1839, and was initially housed in a rented building on Courtland Street (present-day Saint Paul Street/Place) "under the direction of Professor Nathan C. Brooks (1809–1898), a locally renowned Classics scholar. The school was housed at three different locations in its first three years of existence before returning to its original building on Courtland Street. The City Council in 1843 allocated $23,000 (equivalent to $755,970 in 2023) to acquire the nearby Assembly Rooms building at the northeast corner of East Fayette and Holliday Streets for the new school. The City Council in 1850 granted the Board of School Commissioners the right to confer graduates of the then-decade old high school with certificates of graduation, and the following year of 1851 in the old famous Front Street Theatre, along the east bank of the Jones Falls stream (between East Fayette and Lexington Streets) in the colonial era Jonestown / Old Town neighborhoods east of downtown, the school held its first commencement ceremony under the name of the "Central High School of Baltimore" (replacing the former unofficial title of the Male High School – used following the 1844 founding of twin all-female secondary schools of the Eastern and Western Female High Schools sited in opposite sides of the city). The reorganized Central High had its first ceremonies with well-known influential civic citizen, orator and lawyer Severn Teackle Wallis (1816–1894), as its first commencement speaker.
In the wake of an 1865 recommendation from the Baltimore City Council, the Board of School Commissioners, renamed and elevated the Central High School of Baltimore to become The Baltimore City College and allowed it to began offering a five-year academic track, in an effort to elevate the school to the status of a baccalaureate degree-conferring college. On October 9, 1866, the City Council accepted the School Board request and renamed the high school officially as "The Baltimore City College". The Council however failed to take any further action such as recommendations to the General Assembly of Maryland. Therefore, the new B.C.C. with its longer curriculum and stricter academic standards was never granted the power during the later 1800s to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees, although for the following generations / decades, a Baltimore City College elaborate inscribed diploma frequently gave a graduate to be given advanced credit status in many American colleges and universities, such as the longtime special relationship between B.C.C and its adjacent neighbors at The Johns Hopkins University.
In November 1873, a fire spread from the Holliday Street Theater next door to the north to the historic "Assembly Rooms" structure forcing the City Council to allocate new resources to build a new school building especially for the recently renamed Baltimore City College. The council acquired a lot several blocks further northwest on the southwest corner of North Howard Street opposite West Centre Street and allocated $150,000 (equivalent to $3.47 million in 2023) for the construction of the new building designed by Baltimore architect Edmund G. Lind and municipal architect George A. Frederick, who also designed the then-new monumental Baltimore City Hall under construction 1867–1875.
The new City College building was constructed in an English Gothic revival style of brown brick. The new high school was also adjacent to the Academy of Music auditorium and theater recently also completed and opened that same year, in the center of Baltimore's new theater / entertainment district. The new City College's third major academic structure was dedicated on February 1, 1875. The high school remained in its new building for 17 years when it was undermined in August 1892 by the underground construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Howard Street tunnel causing the B.C.C. structure to collapse. B.C.C. held classes further northwest in a converted school at Dolphin Street and Pennsylvania Avenue and also at northeast corner of North Paca and West Fayette Streets in another former elementary school building.
By the end of the decade, a new larger structure designed in the Italianate Romanesque Revival style of architecture of red brick with gray stone trim by the noted local architectural firm of Baldwin & Pennington (Ephraim Baldwin and Josias Pennington). The new second high school building was erected on the same previous site, however was reoriented and turned to face its front to the north on the south side of West Centre Street, midway between Eutaw and Howard Streets, and facing the buildings to the north of the first downtown campus of 1876–1915 of Johns Hopkins University. This new 1899 building however quickly became overcrowded in the first decades of the 20th century and an annex was built further north on East 26th Street in Peabody Heights for underclassmen.
The school's enrollment increased significantly during World War I and alumni began organizing a campaign to build a larger building with a modern surrounding campus grounds with a grass lawn during the early 1920s. In 1922, a nationwide architectural contest was held for various plans to be submitted for the future "capstone of the Baltimore and Maryland public education system". In 1926, ground was broken for a massive Collegiate Gothic stone edifice designed by the local architects Buckler and Fenhagen (one of whom was a City College graduate himself) on renamed "Collegian Hill" at the southwest corner of newly laid-out boulevards with park-like landscaped median strips at 33rd Street and The Alameda. Buckler and Fenhagen's "Cathedral of Learning" was designed to accommodate 2,500 students and cost almost $3 million dollars (equivalent to $42.1 million in 2023), making it one of the most expensive school projects in America up to that time. It won a regional architecture prize / medal as contributing to the Baltimore landscape in 1928. The new high school and campus grounds officially opened April 10, 1928.
The main academic rubble stone building with limestone trim, featured cornices, cloisters, carved gargoyles and sculpture, arched huge tall windows with colored stained glass leaded panes for the front / northeast side of the two-story high ceiling Library, Lecture Hall and center Trophy Hall (which were unfortunately removed during the 1977–1979 renovation project), mahogany wood paneling, stone block front entry foyer, plaster corridor arches, elaborate lighting chandeliers, terra cotta tiles, and polished terrazzo floors with two inside courtyards. The new "Castle" was designed by architects Buckler and Fenhagen to be expanded in the future with the addition of additional E-shaped similar stone Collegiate Gothic style wings / buildings on the northwest and northeast corners facing the Upper Campus planned for future B.C.C. expansion plus a possible companion junior high / middle school. A proposed clock and set of carillon bells system for the central landmark tower were left unfinished. Unfortunately fifteen years later during the early "black-out" years of World War II (1939/1941-1945), the beautiful multi-colored stained glass ceiling / skylight over the central auditorium with its wrap-around balcony was unfortunately covered / tarred over.
Following the United States Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas in May 1954, and the summer long deliberations of the Board of School Commissioners the decision to racially integrate all Baltimore public schools was made. City admitted its first Black / African American students in September 1954.
Two years later the Maryland Scholastic Association integrated its sports competitions, opening to formerly segregated black City high schools: Frederick Douglass, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Carver Vo-Tech in 1956.
Two years later, the first Black faculty members in 116 years of school history were assigned to the B.C.C., Mr. Pierre H. Davis to the Business Education and Mr. Eugene Parker to the Physical Education Departments. Mr. Davis returned 15 years later in September 1970, after his brief faculty time at the Castle during the 1950s, as the fifteenth and first Black principal of the City College, serving four years.
Enrollment at the City College reached a record high of nearly 4,000 male students by the mid-1960s, mostly due to the post-World War II "baby boom" and the lack of additional high schools in the outer reaches of Baltimore City. Following the construction / opening of several new high schools, enrollment began to decline by the mid-1970s.
After the crisis levels of overcrowding with the instigation of "split -shifts" during the previous decade to now contending with the reverse problems of declining enrollment which reached a low of about 1,500 students in 1973, the school's academic standards also began to decline. The school's once-prestigious "A-Course" (Advanced College Preparatory Course) academic track since the 1920s was discontinued in 1973 and a single academic track was offered in 1973–76 in a misguided improvement proposal however without any additional funding for the additional curriculum or strict admissions standards.
In 1978, using a half-million dollars originally earmarked for a swimming pool, a starter agreement was made with the City and state-wide school construction program to the main academic building. The renovations would require the school to temporarily relocate for two years. In 1979 the City admitted female students for the first time in its then-140-year history.
The Castle's academic decline continued during the late 1970s, until under new hand-picked Principal Solomon Lausch celebrated the return of City College to its Castle in rededication ceremonies on the front upper campus highlighted by the appearance of a replica medieval-garbed "Black Knight" mascot (used since 1950) riding on a gray horse posing for photos in front of stone battlements once more occupied by "Collegians" after a two-year absence. Lausch's administration lasted over a decade giving stable direction and enforcing the academic goals and principles of the Task Force's recommendations from 1977 to 1979 for a revived resurgent and especially resurgent proud "New Baltimore City College".
The 1990s, under Principal Joseph Antenson saw a new program introduced, a revamped curriculum, raised admissions standards, and secured increased funding and unique local autonomy from the Baltimore City Public Schools's Board of School Commissioners oversight and direction. B.C.C.'s continued advancement and 15 years of a turn-around accelerated when Joseph Wilson, a former attorney-at-law, in 1994 to lead the school. Principal Wilson strengthened academic standards by introducing the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Program in September 1998. By the early-2000s, the City College was once again routinely counted among the state, region and nation's best public high schools. The B.C.C. was recognized at the start of the 1999–2000 academic year by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Blue Ribbon School.

## Campus

The Baltimore City College stands on an expansive, tree-shaded 38-acre (153,781 m$^2$) hill-top campus in northeast Baltimore at the intersection of 33rd Street and the Alameda. The campus consists of two buildings: the Collegiate Gothic architecture-style central / main edifice known locally as the "Castle on the Hill" which sits in the center of the landscaped with many trees on the hill-top campus, and the flanking power plant building also built 1926–1928, across a faculty parking lot, further east of the Castle. In addition to providing the building's utilities, the power plant building originally housed five workshops: an electrical shop, a mechanical shop, a metal shop, a printing shop, and a wood shop. It currently houses the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello community corporation headquarters. Both buildings of 1926–1928 and a later similar matching style of a north expansion annex wing added in 1958 for the then additional music rooms were designed in a similar Gothic style architecture using red brick and limestone trim by the same architecture firm of Buckler and Fenhagen.
The "Castle" features an iconic landmark 150-foot-tall Gothic style architecture central tower (designed originally to hold a set of clocks on its four facades plus a carillon bells system that were never installed after its 1928 opening due to "Great Depression" budget cutbacks after the famous October 1929 Stock Market Crash) that is visible from many locations throughout Baltimore. South of the main academic building is the renamed George Petrides Stadium at Alumni Field, which serves as home to the school's athletic teams, with a grandstand for especially football, with adjoining fields for baseball, soccer and tennis courts. During a major building renovation in 1977–1979, a modern larger gymnasium was added to the southwest corner of the main building, replacing the old narrow gym (nicknamed "The Crackerbox") on the south side, used 1928 to 1977.
In June 2003, the current "Castle on the Hill" building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, besides also being listed as a "Baltimore City Landmark". The listing of the building coincided with the structure's 75th anniversary. On April 24, 2007, the building was also designated a "Baltimore City Landmark", which means that the building's exterior cannot be altered without approval of the city's Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation. On June 21, 2007, the school's Alumni Association received a historic preservation award from the presentation organization Baltimore Heritage for its leadership role in preserving the building as an historic Baltimore landmark. In 2017, Architectural Digest magazine named the school the most beautiful public high school in the state of Maryland and on the list as one of the most beautiful in the nation, which was also noted in several local television station's news reports.

### B.C.C. Center for Teaching and Learning

City College launched in 2015 the Torch Burning Bright campaign, a fundraising effort to modernize and rehab its library and student resource center. The $2.2 million dollars project was designed by the local firm JRS Architects and added new spaces for resource stacks; new areas for studying and reading; The central Great Hall (formerly Trophy Hall( had its original polished slate floor which had been covered with carpeting in 1977–79 renovations, was restored and reconfigured as a large communal space and reading room; additional new classrooms, seminar spaces, and conference rooms, a new location for library special collections and school archives, a listening and viewing room for audio / visual material, and office space for school library staff.
The B.C.C. Center for Teaching and Learning opened to students and faculty in January 2016 and is staffed by five full-time professionals, including the center director, the head librarian, and three staff coordinating each academic center. In all, the Center for Teaching and Learning includes the following resources for students:
* Cordish Technology Center
* Doetsch Hall, the school's premier meeting and presentation space
* Joseph Meyerhoff Library, the school's main library on campus featuring physical and digital collections
* Reed Math and Science Center
* The Writing Center
* The Research Center

## Academics
### Mission

When it was founded in March 1839 as the flagship school of what later became the Baltimore City Public Schools, Baltimore City College was charged with providing a unique classics- and liberal arts-based course of study and with holding all members of its school community to the highest standards of academic achievement and personal development. The school's stated mission is to prepare its students to succeed in the best colleges in the United States, with a focus on liberal arts.

### 19th-century curriculum: the five-year course era

The creation of a male high school "in which the higher branches of English and classical literature should be taught exclusively" was authorized unanimously by the Baltimore City Council on March 7, 1839. The school opened its doors October 20, 1839, with 46 students. Those enrolled were offered two academic tracks, a classical literature track and an English literature track. The sole instructor for both tracks was the educator and poet, Nathan C. Brooks, who also served as principal. To accommodate the two tracks, Brooks split the school day into two sections: one in the morning from 9 a.m. to 12 a.m., and another in the afternoon from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. During the morning session, students studied either classics or English; however, the afternoon was devoted to English. In 1849, after a decade of service, Prof. Brooks resigned as principal of the school, which had now grown to include 232 students and 7 teachers, excluding Brooks.
Rev. Dr. Francis G. Waters, who had been the president of the Washington College, succeeded Brooks. The following year the city council renamed the school "The Central High School of Baltimore" and granted the commissioners of the public schools the right to confer certificates to the high school's graduates, a practice still in place today. By 1850, growing enrollment necessitated a reorganization of the school. Under the direction of Waters, the school day was divided into eight periods lasting forty-five minutes: four sessions were held in the morning and four in the afternoon. In addition to reorganizing the schedule, he divided the courses into seven different departments: Belles-letters and history, mathematics, natural sciences, moral, mental, and political science, ancient languages, modern languages and music. Each of the seven instructors was assigned to a distinct department and received the title of "professor".
In 1850, the Baltimore City Council granted the school the authority to present its graduates with certificates of completion. An effort to expand that academic power and allow the then-named "Central High School of Baltimore" to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees began in 1865, and continued the following year with the renaming of the institution as "The Baltimore City College" the retitling of its chief academic officer from "principal" to "president", along with an increase in the number of years of its course of study and the expansion of its courses. However, despite this early elevation effort, it ended unsuccessfully in 1869, although Baltimore City College continued for a number of years as a hybrid public high school and early form of junior college (later known as community college) which did not fully appear in America until the beginning of the 20th century. As the importance of college education increased toward the end of the 19th century, the school's priorities shifted to preparing students for college.

### 20th-century curriculum: the A/B course era

In 1901, the course of study at Baltimore City College went through a series of further changes. The most significant was the reduction of the five-year course of study to four years; though students who entered prior to 1900 were allowed to complete the five-year course. The new course, like the course it replaced, allowed graduates to be admitted to Johns Hopkins University without examination, and provided students with greater flexibility. Instead of requiring students to complete the same set of courses, it allowed students to choose their courses, as long as they completed 150 credits. From 1927 to the early 1990s, the college preparatory curriculum at Baltimore City College was divided into two tracks: the "A" course and the "B" course. Though both tracks were intended to provide students with the skills necessary for college, the "A" course was intended to be more rigorous, enabling students to complete sufficient college-level courses to enter directly into the second year of college. In the early-1990s, then-Principal Joseph Antenson removed the two-tier system because he believed it to be racially discriminatory.

#### The 1960s and 1970s

Population decline in the city of Baltimore due to the migration of middle-class white populations to the suburbs during the 1950s and 1960s, coupled with the failure of Baltimore City Public Schools officials to address infrastructure improvements needed in the school's deteriorating, then-thirty-seven-year-old main academic building lead to a gradually declining public perception of the school's academic reputation. In response, school administrators and faculty developed the "City Forever" strategic plan in 1965–66. The performance improvement plan also served as a call to action for the school community, resulting in formal recommendations from the Alumni Association, a series of student-led demonstrations, newspaper articles and television news segments produced by alumni working as media professionals, letters-to-the-editors of local newspapers submitted by parents and teachers, and routine public comments in support of City College at School Board meetings. The public outcry stunned city leadership, which resulted in the district announcing a recommitment to Baltimore City College and its unique role as the selective flagship high school of Baltimore.
Over the next decade, the local school district failed to delivery on its pledge to adequately fund the revitalized Baltimore City College curriculum and enforce higher admissions standards. In 1975, City students, faculty, and influential alumni like then-Mayor of Baltimore William Donald Schaefer '39 and then-City Comptroller Hyman A. Pressman '33 again engaged in a series of coordinated campaigns, urging political leaders and members of the school board to provide the resources and enforce the high standards the school needs to succeed. As a result, the City of Baltimore announced its plan to advance funds to complete a $9 million renovation of the school's main building and earmarked funding for a comprehensive, two-year study (1977–79). Subject matter experts in education and pedagogy, school faculty, parents, alumni, and other members of the school community formed the "New City College Task Force". The task force, which combed through two decades of previous improvement plans, academic proposals, and experimental curricula, recommended to the school board a plan that included stricter admissions and retention standards, a revitalized humanities- and liberal arts-based curriculum, and the autonomy to selectively recruit new, highly qualified faculty and administrators.
The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners ultimately accepted all but one of the task force's recommendations in 1979. The group recommended maintaining the school's then-141-year-old tradition of all-male education. Citing concerns over conflicting federal and district court decisions which had not yet been resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court, the school board voted to make City a coeducational school. The board's action followed trends at the time at all-male colleges and universities like Harvard University, Yale University, and nearby Johns Hopkins University, which admitted women during the 1970s.

#### The 1990s

By 1990, enrollment was declining and the academic program at Baltimore City College had once again become subpar compared to its historically high standards. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, the organization that had accredited the school for years, began raising questions about the institution's ability to offer students an academically rigorous course of study. During this period of decline, the "A" Course was discontinued by newly appointed Principal Joseph Antenson, who contended that the program was racially discriminatory and opted for a standardized curriculum. Antenson was dismissed in 1992 after two tumultuous years as head of school and for the first time ever a private contractor was hired to operate Baltimore City College.
In 1994, Joseph M. Wilson, a lawyer by trade with degrees from Amherst College (B.A.), the University of Pennsylvania (M.A.), the University of Southern California (J.D.), and Harvard University (M.A.), was appointed principal and with the support of alumni and parents, was able to secure more funding and additional autonomy from the Baltimore City Public Schools. Wilson introduced the IB Diploma Program in 1998. The turnaround Wilson orchestrated led to a quick resurgence and restoration of the school's academic reputation. Enrollment, student performance, and the quality of the colleges and universities to which graduates matriculated improved, which attracted critical acclaim from education professionals and international media attention. In 2000, City College was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School, the highest academic honor bestowed by the U.S. Department of Education. In 2001, the Toronto National Post reported on its search for the perfect high school in Great Britain, the United States, and Canada. One subject of the prominent feature article was Baltimore City College and its turnaround.

### 21st-century curriculum

International Baccalaureate (IB) is a rigorous, internationally accepted academic program required of all 21st century Baltimore City College students. The IB Middle Years Program is intended to teach freshman and sophomore students to understand how core subjects are interrelated, how to master critical thinking processes, and to increase intercultural awareness. As juniors and seniors, students engage in the rigorous two-year IB Diploma curriculum that requires a comprehensive study of world topics, literature, languages, science, and math. City College's IB certificate and diploma programs provide upperclassmen access to thirty advanced studies courses, which often translate into credit hours at colleges and universities worldwide.
Despite some concerns of the school's alumni association, school administrators proceeded with plans to expand the City College IB Program by incorporating the IB Middle Years Program into the 9th and 10th grade curricula. In addition to the IB courses, the school's academic program offers a small selection of Advanced Placement courses.

#### International Baccalaureate course offerings

As of the 2015–2016 school year, the International Baccalaureate courses below are offered at the school. Some courses are offered at the higher level (HL) and standard level (SL).

### Graduation requirements

Students who successfully complete the school's required curriculum earn the Baltimore City College diploma upon graduation, which has been granted since 1851. The requirements are more stringent than those designated by the State of Maryland.
Requirements for the Baltimore City College Diploma:
* Successful completion of a minimum of one IB Diploma- or Certificate-level course, or AP course
* Successful completion of the IB Personal Project
* Physics or an advanced-level IB/AP science
* Two Fine Arts courses (requirement waived for IB Diploma candidates)
* Successful completion of the College Writing seminar (requirement waived for IB Diploma candidates and students enrolled in IB English IV)
* Minimum cumulative GPA of 70%
* Submit admission applications to a minimum of four colleges (including FAFSA submission)
* Take the SAT or ACT at least two times
* 75 hours of documented Service Learning activity

## Admissions

Admission to Baltimore City College is selective but is open to residents of Baltimore City and the surrounding counties in the metropolitan area, though non-Baltimore City residents must pay tuition. Applicants must meet all requirements for promotion to ninth grade, as determined by the Maryland State Department of Education. Additionally, applicants must earn a minimum composite score of 610, calculated by Baltimore City Public Schools. Generally, candidates for admission must have a 3.0 overall numeric grade average (B letter grade; 80 or better percentage grade), have at least a 3.0 average in both Mathematics and English, rank in the 65th percentile or better among all Maryland students in Math and English on the Maryland School Assessment (MSA), and have 90% or better attendance rate. Due to the highly competitive nature of the City College admissions process, successful applicants typically exceed the aforementioned minimums. J.D. Merrill, BCC '09, is the school's current Director of Admissions and Institutional Advancement.

## Enrollment

There were 1494 students enrolled at Baltimore City College in 2022. Of those students, 39 percent were male and 61 percent were female. 67.5 percent of the total student body identifies as African-American. 17.4 percent of students at the school identify as white. Roughly 12 percent of City College students identify as Hispanic. A little over one percent of the total student population identifies as Asian.

## Athletics

Interscholastic athletics at Baltimore City College date back over 120 years. Though varsity sports were not formally organized until 1895, interscholastic athletics became a fixture at the school earlier in the 19th century with some documentation of activity going back to the 1870s. The annual tradition of a football game with Baltimore Manual Training School, started in 1889. The two schools were only separated by about five city blocks in the downtown area and oral tradition holds that a match was held between the B.C.C. "Collegians" and the B.M.T.S. "scrubs" at a field in the newly municipal acquired Clifton Park. By 1893, the Manual Training " School itself was renamed as the "Baltimore Polytechnic Institute" (B.P.I. or "Poly").
By the early 1890s, the City College was playing in the newly organized Maryland Intercollegiate Football Association (M.I.F.A.), a nine-member athletic league consisting of colleges and schools in Washington, D.C., and Maryland area. City College was the lone secondary school among the old MIFA membership. The B.C.C. 1895 football schedule included St. John's College of Annapolis, Swarthmore College, the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, the former Maryland Agriculture College, (which later became after a 1920 merger (with the older original University of Maryland at Baltimore campus since 1807) to become the University of Maryland at College Park, and also the Washington College across the Chesapeake Bay in Chestertown, Maryland (on the Eastern Shore of Maryland). Between 1894 and 1920, the City College "Collegians" regularly faced off also against their neighbors at Howard and Centre Streets of the Johns Hopkins University "Blue Jays" and the Navy Midshipmen in our state's team sport of lacrosse.
The Baltimore City College began competing on a regular extensive program schedule against the then few other public high schools and the many more numerous private / independent or parochial secondary schools in 1919 when it was invited to join the Maryland Scholastic Association (M.S.A.) as a founding member institution, with its organizing co-founder and B.C.C. teacher / coach (and future 10th Principal) Dr. Philip H. Edwards leading to form the new public / private athletic league. After 74 years of governing Baltimore metro area boys' high school athletics, the old Maryland Scholastic Association dissolved in 1993 when its 15 public high school members from the Baltimore City Public Schools including City College, withdrew from the public / private schools athletic league. Baltimore City's high schools then joined the larger state association of public secondary schools, the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association.
The "Black Knights" currently compete with other public secondary schools in the MPSSAA Class 3A, North Region, District 9.
The current City College varsity athletic program consists of 18 sports: six for boys, seven for girls, and five coeducational teams. The boys' sports includes baseball, basketball, football, lacrosse, soccer, and wrestling. The girls' sports are badminton, basketball, lacrosse, soccer, softball, and volleyball. The five co-ed sports are cross country, indoor track and field, swimming, outdoor track and field, and tennis. Girls' sports were added to City's athletic department in the fall of 1978 when the reorganized "magnet high school" became coeducational for the first time in its then-139-year-old history.

### Basketball

Basketball has been played at Baltimore City College for more than a century and a quarter dating back to the introduction of the new sport in America in the 1890s. One of the earliest recorded results in program history is a one-point overtime road loss to the future University of Maryland at College Park's "Terrapins" (then known as the Maryland Agricultural College "Aggies" or "Cadets") on January 25, 1913. Baltimore City College currently competes in District 9 (Baltimore City League) of the MPSSAA.

### Football

The Baltimore City College football program began in the mid-1870s, and has won more than 20 M.S.A. "A-Conference" and championships in its history. The Knights primarily competed against area colleges and universities throughout the 1880s and 1890s because only a few secondary schools existed at the time. The program began competing against other high schools at the beginning of the 20th century, especially after the 1919 organization of the old MSA and has held since 1941 the record for the longest streak of games played without a loss in MSA and MPSSAA history. The "Collegians" played 54 consecutive games without a loss between 1934 and 1941. Harry Lawrence, who guided the Castle footballers to a 38-game undefeated streak between 1936 and 1940 (including 35 wins, three ties, and four MSA championships), remains City College's most successful head football coach.

#### City–Poly rivalry (1889–present)

The City-Poly football rivalry is the oldest American football rivalry in Maryland, and one of the oldest public school football rivalries in the United States. The rivalry began in 1889, when the City College met the old Baltimore Manual Training School (later renamed the Baltimore Polytechnic Institute - "Poly" after 1893) at the old Johns Hopkins country estate for a football scrimmage in which City's freshman team beat the new B.M.T.S. team. City remained undefeated in the growing series according to the records until 1908.
With City's 40 to 0 win in 2024, City now leads the series with a record of 66–62, with 6 ties. 2024 marked City's 12th straight win of the series.

### Swimming

On February 22, 2020, at the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association 3A, 2A, 1A swimming and diving championships held in College Park, City's swim team finished in 14th place. City sophomore Taj Benton led the Knights, finishing 1st in the 100-yard butterfly and 4th in the 200-yard individual medley. Benton is the first student from a Baltimore City public school to win a state championship in any statewide swimming event.

## Extracurricular activities

Baltimore City College offers more than 20 student clubs and organizations. These include chapters of national organizations such as the National Honor Society (established at the school in 1927) and Quill and Scroll. Service clubs include the Red Cross Club and Campus Improvement Association. Other activities include the Drama Club, which produces an annual play, the Art Club, Model UN, Band, Dance, and One City One Book, an organization that invites the entire school community to read one book selected by faculty and invites the author of the book for a reading, discussion, and question and answer period. In 2007, Pulitzer Prize winner, MacArthur Fellow, and novelist Edward P. Jones discussed his book Lost in the City. The school store is operated by students and managed by the Student Government Association. City's academic team participates on It's Academic, a local version of the syndicated nationwide television show, seen on WJZ-TV, (Channel 13), usually on Saturday mornings.

### Speech and debate/literary and debating societies

The Baltimore City College debate team has a tradition that dates back over 150 years. The speech and debate teams are formally referred to as the Bancroft and Carrollton-Wight Literary Societies. The school's first formal debate team within a student literary society was established in 1876 as the Bancroft Literary Association. In 1878, a second competing rival society, the Carrollton Literary Society, was formed, named for Maryland's famous longest-living signer of the Declaration of Independence, the wealthiest man then in colonial era America and the only Roman Catholic member / signer in the Second Continental Congress of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832), representing Maryland. That society was later renamed the "Carrollton-Wight Literary Society", in honor of the group's first advisor, Professor Charles Wight, a celebrated faculty member during the 1870s, while the high school was then located in the first B.C.C. building of two on the site at Howard and Centre Streets, from 1875 to 1892, then 1899 to 1928.
The speech and debate team competes in various speech events, Student Congress, Mock Trial, Lincoln-Douglas debate, and Policy Debate against teams throughout Maryland and routinely travels around the United States to compete on the national circuit. The team currently participates in four competitive debate leagues: the Baltimore Catholic Forensic League, the Baltimore Urban Debate League, the Chesapeake region of the National Catholic Forensic League, and the National Forensic League. Several community partners, including the Abell Foundation and the Baltimore Community Foundation, which endowed the Gilbert Sandler Fund for Speech and Debate in 2008, help provide financial support to the program.

### Bands and orchestra

The marching band at Baltimore City College was created in the late 1940s. At the time, the instrumental music program consisted of the orchestra, concert band, and marching band. The director who brought the band to prominence was Dr. Donald Norton. In 1954, while on sabbatical, he was replaced by Professor Charles M. Stengstacke. The 65 member concert band doubled as a marching band in the fall. During halftime performances at home the band would form the shape of a heart or a car, but always ending the performance by forming the letters C-I-T-Y.
In the 1980s, under James Russell Perkins, these groups grew in size and changed styles, adding "soulful" dance steps. Perkins's groups toured and traveled the east coast. They received superior ratings at district and state festivals. Perkins is responsible for the creation of the City College Jazz Band, the "Knights of Jazz". In 1994, Alvin T. Wallace became Band Director. During his tenure, a wind ensemble was added and the marching band grew to include over 150 members. In 1999, the band swept the top categories in the Disney World high school band competition. In 2006, the wind ensemble received a grade of superior at the district adjudication festival and marched in the Baltimore Mayor's Christmas Day Parade.

### Choirs

The Baltimore City College choir was founded in 1950 by Professor Donald Regier. Originally a co-curricular subject with only 18 members, by 1954 it had developed into a major subject of study with 74 students enrolled. Under the direction of Linda Hall, today's choir consists of four groups: the Mixed Chorus, the Concert Choir, the Singin'/Swingin' Knights, and the Knights and Daze Show Choir.
The Mixed Choir is opened to all students at City College and currently has a membership of approximately 135 students. The Concert Choir is a more selective group consisting of about 50 students, who must audition for their places in the choir. The Singin'/Swingin' Knights is an even more selective group composed of 25 students. The Knights and Daze Show Choir is a group of students, who perform a choreographed dance routine while they sing. With the exception of the Knights and Daze Show Choir, which performs jazz and pop music, the choir's repertoire consists of gospel music, spirituals, and Classical works by composers such as Handel and Michael Praetorius.
The choir has traveled to Europe on several occasions. Its first trip was in 1999, after receiving an invitation to perform at the Choralfest in Arezzo, Italy. In 2003, the choir returned to Italy to perform at the annual Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The choir has also performed in France and Spain. On October 2, 2007, the Weill Institute of Music at Carnegie Hall announced that the City College choir was one of four high school choirs selected to participate in the National High School Choral Festival on March 10, 2008. The four choirs performed Johannes Brahms' A German Requiem under the direction of Craig Jessop, Mormon Tabernacle Choir Director. The choirs were led by their own directors in performing choral selections of their choosing.

## Student publications
### The Green Bag

The Green Bag is the senior class and school annual / yearbook at The Baltimore City College. Published continuously since 1896, it is now approaching Volume 128 of publication. "The Bag" is the oldest publication still in existence and printed / issued usually annually at the school and is one of the oldest high school or college yearbooks in America. G. Warfield Hobbs Jr. (later became a well-known Episcopal priest and academic doctor), president of the 1896 senior class and first editor-in-chief of The Green Bag, gave the publication its longtime distinctive unique name in recognition of the role of City College graduates in political, and legal / judicial leadership. Historically, the famous green "carpet bag" in the 19th century containing the lists of political appointees (also known as "patronage") of the sitting Governor of Maryland to be approved by the General Assembly of Maryland has long been known as the "green bag" lists (and is still referred to as such by modern-day local press journalists, reporters and editors including the newer media of television and radio, although the derivation of the term is unknown. The term has already been researched into its origins by the staff at the Maryland State Archives / Hall of Records at the state capital of Annapolis, most recently in 2003. The term became synonymous with "good news" and "glad tidings", such as could be applied to the feelings that recent graduates felt when seeing and reading their new yearbooks published soon after their graduations.
The first yearbooks contained sketches of faculty and seniors, and included recollections, anecdotes, stories, and quotes significant to the student body. Underclassmen were included for the first time with individual portraits in the growing student body in 1948. In 2007, The Green Bag released its first full-color edition, one of the most colorful since color printing of photographs was first introduced in The Bag in 1963 and again in 1967, repeated in 1972 under new publisher / printer of Josten's American Yearbook Company. For many years the annual was printed by the local well-known printer/publisher of H.G. Roebuck and Son, owned by a City alumnus up to 1970 The most controversial issue of The Green Bag was the so-called "Green Bag Affair" celebrated and described in the several local daily newspapers of the time and read by many turn-of-the-century Baltimoreans. Volume 5 of the still new concept of a school or class yearbook published in the millennial year of 1900 when members of the senior Class of 1900, used the annual to make fun of their professors, printing a cartoon showing various faculty members (easily identifiable) as distinctive, unique and rare exhibited specimen animals in a group of cages as in a zoo!!. The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners were not however greatly amused or tolerant feeling betrayed and insulted themselves by the young Collegians and attempted to censor the edition by requiring The Green Bag to be reviewed by then President / Principal Francis A. Soper. The yearbook had however already been printed, and in defiance of the School Board, the editors refused to have the edition censored, cutting out the offensive cartoon and reprinted. The School Board responded by withholding the treasured City College diplomas of six of the offending editors and the business manager and by preventing the city's premier high school from holding a public commencement ceremony which were often attended by the general public in those days as one of only five secondary schools in the region or have the boys expelled, Clarence Keating Bowie, a quarter-century later even became a member of the very same School Board himself in 1926. Coincidentally, the infamous cartoon was later printed for the first time in an issue of "The Bag" in an opening feature segment with a B.C.C. chronology and historical photos / illustrations montage on Castle school history in 1972 in Volume 77.

### The Collegian

The Collegian has been the school student newspaper of record at Baltimore City College since it was first published as a bi-weekly newspaper in 1929. There have been other similar publications, such as The Oriole, the student magazine which started printing in 1912, however The Collegian is oldest, continuous student-run publication. Originally, the newspaper was both managed and printed by students. During the 1930s, The Collegian won numerous awards including second place in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association's annual contest for five years in a row. Since 2000, printing of the publication has been scaled back. The Collegian is now published quarterly, often with a bonus issue around the time of the annual City-Poly football game. Since 2014, The Collegian also actively engages students and alumni through various social media platforms.

## Alumni Association

The Baltimore City College Alumni Association Inc. (BCCAA) was established in 1866 as a support network for City College. The BCCAA holds an annual meeting at the school every November and its board of governors meets the first Monday of each month at the school.
The BCCAA publishes the class reunion guide, established and maintains a life membership endowment fund, presents Golden Apple Awards annually to faculty members, sponsors the Hall of Fame selection and induction, publishes a semi-annual newsletter, maintains an alumni database, and assists with projects designed to enrich student life and improve the school's facilities.

### Trustees of the Baltimore City College Scholarship Funds

The Trustees of the Baltimore City College Scholarship Funds, Inc., was established and incorporated in 1983, and replaced a similar entity that was established in 1924. The Trustees manage endowments, most of which provide annual scholarships to graduating seniors based on criteria stipulated by the donors. Combined endowment assets are currently valued at or around $1.68 million (adjusted for inflation) covering thirty-four annual scholarships. To recognize the custodianship provided by the Trustees, the BCCAA has placed a bronze plaque in the main hall of the school which carries an individually cast nameplate for each of the thirty-four permanent endowments held by the Trustees.

### Baltimore City College Hall of Fame

The Baltimore City College Hall of Fame induction ceremony is held annually in October. Alumni who have demonstrated extraordinary service to the school, city, state, country, or world are elected to the Hall of Fame, with former inductees, alumni, and students attending the two-hour ceremony. Inductees have included vice-president at Goldman Sachs Robert Hormats in 2007, and Maryland State delegate Curt Anderson in 2013.

## Notable alumni

Many City College alumni have become civil servants, including three of the 10 individuals currently representing the state of Maryland in the U.S. Congress, Congressman Dutch Ruppersberger and Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen. Among graduates with significant military service are two Commandants of the U.S. Coast Guard – Rear Admiral Frederick C. Billard and Admiral J. William Kime, as well as 2nd Lieutenant Jacob Beser of the U.S. Army Marines the only individual to serve on both atomic bomb missions over Japan in 1945. In addition, four City College alumni are also recipients of the congressional Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award.
The list of BCC alumni also includes prominent scientists, notable writers and models, and successful businessmen.

## Notable faculty members

* Ed Burns, Edgar Award-winning writer for The Corner and The Wire
* McFadden Newell, first principal of Towson University
* ZZ Packer, author, Guggenheim Fellow
* George L. P. Radcliffe, U.S. Senator
* Joel I. Seidman (1906–1977), professor and author of The Yellow dog contract
* Robert Herring Wright, first president, East Carolina University
* George Young, NFL executive, general manager New York Giants

## Principals

* Nathan C. Brooks (1839–1849), first principal of "The High School".
* Rev. Francis G. Waters (1849–1853), second principal of the then renamed "Central High School of Baltimore".
* George Morrison
* Dr. Thomas D. Baird
* Joseph Elliott
* Francis A. Soper (1890–1911), longest serving tenured principal of 21 years
* Wilbur F. Smith (1911–1926)
* Dr. Frank R. Blake (1926–1932)
* Dr. Phillip H. Edwards (1932–1948)
* Chester H. Katenkamp (1948–1954)
* Henry T. Yost (1954–1963)
* Dr. Julius G. Hlubb (1963–1967)
* Dr. Jerome G. Denaburg (1967–1970)
* Pierre H. Davis, (1970–1974), first Black principal
* Dr. Solomon Lausch (1979–?)
* Dr. Joseph Antenson
* Ms. Doris Johnson (acting)
* Dr. Joseph Wilson
* Cynthia (Cindy) Harcum (2010–present), one of the first female graduates of the City College, later became its first female principal.