Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics

The Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics (OSSM) is a two-year residential public high school located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Established by the Oklahoma legislature in 1983, the school was designed to educate academically gifted high school students in advanced mathematics and science. It is a member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology.

General
Of approximately 300 applicants each year, 125 are selected for interviews and about 75 high school sophomores from across the state are admitted. The whole application process consists of six short essays, submission of high school transcripts and standardized test scores (such as the ACT), recommendations from teachers and counselors, personal questionnaires of the student, a statement from the student's parents, and an on-campus interview.

Students are accepted from all over the State of Oklahoma, and students from each of Oklahoma's 77 counties have been selected to attend. Because students hail from across the state, all are required to live on campus during the week, though students living nearby often go home on weekends. Classes are held five days a week, with the earliest classes starting at 8am and the latest ending at 5:30pm, although some classes are held at night. Students have many breaks throughout the day depending on their individual, college-style schedule. Students are not allowed in the dorm during their breaks in the academic day, but are to stay academically engaged during these periods. Required physical education classes are held in the afternoon, and fine arts classes (two semesters are required for graduation) are held in the evenings. On alternate Saturday mornings, students are required to sit for a three-hour test, usually in math, literature, or history.

To study at OSSM, students have to give up some luxuries of the outside world, such as cell phones, in-room television, DVDs, and video games; students are also not allowed to keep appliances in their rooms. Two hours of study are required each weeknight from 8-10pm, with students on academic probation (resulting from unsatisfactory grades) required to study for an additional hour each night, beginning at 7pm. Study time is also occasionally required on Friday nights before Saturday tests. Lights out is at 11pm every night of the week.

OSSM fulfills its educational mission at no charge to its students; tuition, as well as room and board, is provided by the State of Oklahoma. It is also listed as one of the best public high schools by Newsweek, in a list of schools which weren't included in their list of Best High Schools because the average OSSM ACT score put it in a completely different category that could not be fairly compared.

Many OSSM graduates earn distinction that allows them a greater choice of potential colleges to attend. Nearly 100% of OSSM graduates are college-bound, and approximately 60% of OSSM graduates choose to remain in-state for college. Of the 900 graduates since the school's inception, 234 students have been named National Merit Scholars, and an additional 141 students have been selected as National Merit Commended Scholars. Graduates also show exemplary performance in other national scholarship programs, with 199 graduates selected as Robert C. Byrd Scholars, and 87 students nominated for the Presidential Scholars Program, of whom six were named semifinalists and two selected as Presidential Scholars. Graduates excel in statewide scholarship programs, with 428 students receiving Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Scholarships and 74 students named Academic All-Staters by the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence. Twice, in 1998 and again in 2000, the school had the highest ACT composite scores of any high school in the United States. In its 2006 "Advanced Placement Report to the Nation", released 2006-02-06, the College Board named the OSSM's Physics C - Electricity and Magnetism course "the strongest of its kind in the world". This was based on OSSM's Spring 2005 AP Physics-C exam performance, in which 20 OSSM students scored three or higher. In no other high school in the world did a greater percentage of students succeed at such a high level of excellence.

While the students are highly capable, the standards they must reach are extremely high, and some do not meet them. Each class loses a few of their original members before graduation for various reasons. For example, the Class of 2006 graduated 53 members (down from the original 72) on the steps of the capitol, and six other members received their diplomas after retaking several tests that summer. Thus, the total number of students to graduate in 2006 was 59. In this case, only 81.9% of the original class members graduated.

Campus
OSSM is located on a sprawling thirty-two acres of beautiful landscaping at the corner of 10th Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard near downtown Oklahoma City, just across the street from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Its main academic building, Lincoln School (recently renamed as Manning Academic Center), was built in 1903, having been an elementary school in the Oklahoma City Public Schools until the 1980s. Lincoln houses the computer lab (in the renovated boiler room), the campus auditorium, ten classrooms, six labs, a student lounge, a sun-bathed study area, and faculty and administrative offices. The Dan Little Residence Hall, with a capacity of 144 students and six faculty families, was completed in 1998, located at the center of campus. The Gymnasium, opened in March 1999, provides a full-size basketball court, a weight room, and a dance floor, among other amenities. The Samson Science and Discovery Center was completed in 2001 and houses three chemistry and four physics labs as well as many personal research labs. Finally, in Fall 2003, the Senator Bernice Shedrick Library opened, with an eventual capacity of 50,000 books.

Demographics

 * Student Body: ~135
 * Average Class Size: 18-20, though most upper-level classes (such as math above Multivariate Calculus, or computer science classes above Data Structures I) are far smaller, occasionally as small as 2 students.
 * Male-Female Ratio: 1:1

Regional Centers
OSSM currently has 12 branches in local areas of Oklahoma. These branches are located on CareerTech campuses, affiliated with the Oklahoma Department of Career and Technology Education. The primary focus in these regional centers are the Calculus BC and Physics C: Mechanics AP Exams.

The regional centers are:
 * Afton, Oklahoma
 * Ardmore, Oklahoma
 * Drumright, Oklahoma
 * Enid, Oklahoma
 * Muskogee, Oklahoma
 * Okmulgee, Oklahoma
 * Ponca City, Oklahoma
 * Poteau, Oklahoma
 * Pryor, Oklahoma/Kansas, Oklahoma
 * Shawnee, Oklahoma
 * Stilwell, Oklahoma
 * Sallisaw, Oklahoma
 * Tahlequah, Oklahoma