Bergen County Academies
in Hackensack, United StatesCategory: Attraction
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200-212 Hackensack Ave, Hackensack, NJ 07601, USA Print route »
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The Bergen County Academies (BCA), commonly referred to as Bergen Academies or as the Academies due to its seven academic and professional divisions, is a tuition-free public magnet high school located in Hackensack, New Jersey that serves students in the ninth through twelfth grades from Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.Admission to the Academies is highly competitive, as the school typically accepts about 270 of the more than 1,600 applicants every year (~16% admissions rate) through a process that includes letters of recommendation, exams, and interviews. Founded in 1991, BCA has been included as one of the 23 highest performing high schools in the United States by The Washington Post and in 2015 was ranked by Newsweek as the #5 public high school in America. In its listing of "America's Best High Schools 2016", the school was ranked 11th out of 500 best high schools in the country; it was ranked fourth among all high schools in New Jersey. More recently, in 2017, U.S. News & World Report recognized BCA as the #1369 high school in the United States, and the #57 high school in New Jersey.
BCA is often excluded from national high school rankings as, despite their quality, their highly-selective admissions criteria and high standardized test scores indicate they have very few average or below-average students.
BCA is a Blue Ribbon School, a member of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology, admitted to the Coalition of Essential Schools, home to five Intel Science Talent Search finalists in the past five years, and a Model School in the Arts as named by the New Jersey Department of Education.
63.5% of the Class of 2015 will be National Merit Scholars, Finalists, Semifinalists, or Commended students, who are at least the top 5% in the State of New Jersey based on PSAT scores and at best the top 0.5% of the United States based on PSAT scores, academic record, recommendations, and essays.
As of the 2014-15 school year, the school had an enrollment of 1,044 students and 94.0 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 11.1:1. There were 33 students (3.2% of enrollment) eligible for free lunch and 17 (1.6% of students) eligible for reduced-cost lunch.
BCA's strengths are in its academics, extracurricular activities, and notable faculty, many of whom hold doctorates in their respective fields. While offering some 16 AP courses, BCA does not focus on them. Led by a faculty of which 20% hold PhDs, students at BCA enjoy courses that often surpass AP courses in technical rigor and creativity, such as Series Hybrids & Electric Vehicles, Civil Engineering & Architecture, Cybersecurity, Digital Electronics, Optics & Lasers, Arduino Microcontroller, Modern Optical Physics, Advanced Problems in Music Theory & Technology, Comparative Asian Cultures, Microscopy, Forensic Science, Biopsychology, Foundations of Nanotechnology, Interactive Design, Robotics, Stagecraft, Medical Microbiology, BioEngineering, Markets & Trading, Zoology, Acting Methods, Bioethics, Java, Python, Anatomy & Physiology, Organic Chemistry, Macroeconomics & International Economics, Advanced Business Topics, Entrepreneurship, and Culinology.
