Most students take several AP achievement tests, administered by the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, and their scores on those exams help them gain entry to the nation's most prestigious colleges and universities. M cNair Academic is actually one of New Jersey's more unusual high schools. Begun as an experimental school in 1976, it was designed to give academically oriented urban students a place to get a college-preparatory education. Any student in Jersey City can apply for admission. In deciding whether to admit a student, administrators consider past grades, attendance, extracurricular activities, awards, test scores, recommendations from teachers, and the written statement that applicants must submit explaining why they want to attend McNair Academic.
Students applying for admission compete only against others in their own ethnic or racial group.
Critics might charge that the school performs well in rankings such as New Jersey Monthly's because its admission is selective. But compare the economic and social backgrounds of McNair Academic students to those of students from suburban high schools. What you find is that these, the best students in Jersey City, face challenges every day that are almost unknown in the suburbs. School administrators say that few freshmen have even heard of the Scholastic Assessment Test or AP courses when they enter the school. Many don't know anyone outside of the faculty who graduated from college.