Stanford Online High School is a highly selective independent school offering courses for grades 7–12, where dedicated teachers help talented students worldwide pursue their passions in real-time, online, seminar classes.
Stanford OHS was founded at Stanford University in 2006 with a gift from the Malone Family Foundation. It began as a three-year high school comprising a worldwide community of highly motivated students and teachers, and expanded to include grades 7-9. Central to our mission was the creation of an innovative online program of study, one that evoked the University’s dynamism and provoked the discourse of the best brick-and-mortar classes. We succeeded, producing in the heart of Silicon Valley one of the nation’s first independent online high schools. Today, Stanford OHS and Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies together serve academically talented, intellectually curious pre-college students. Stanford OHS is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), and the California Association of Independent Schools (CAIS).
Expect the Extraordinary
Stanford Online High School creates a worldwide learning community of diverse, intellectually passionate students and teachers. Through vibrant seminars, the rigorous curriculum challenges students to reason analytically, think creatively, and argue critically.
How It Works
Our seminars, averaging 12 in a class, allow students to engage in every aspect of a course using real-time discussions where teachers and students interact with each other. A rotating camera maximizes interaction as students see and speak with classmates and instructors during the seminar.
Instructors work with students in a lively setting that goes beyond the capabilities of brick-and-mortar classrooms. Students engage by raising their hands to speak to instructors and peers, marking up onscreen class materials, and collaborating in small groups.
An Innovative Curriculum
Our curriculum offers discipline-specific knowledge along with broadly applicable skills: an understanding of evidence; strategies of criticism andpersuasion; facility with the analysis of data; and critical listening, thinking, and reasoning. Our four-year Core Sequence challenges students to write, reason, and engage in argumentation through study of human nature, science, science history, political theory, and philosophy.
Expert Instructors
Our instructors are distinguished by their expertise in their academic disciplines; by their passion and skills regarding the teaching of highly talented students in a demanding, interactive online environment; and by the high expectations they have for their students and for themselves. Their innovative pedagogy, developed to make optimal use of all available teaching tools and technologies, turns students’ varied locations into a virtue and ensures that everyone is fully present and participating in each seminar.
Supportive Community
- Academic Advisors support the educational experiences of each Stanford OHS student, helping them to chart their academic paths.
- Counselors ensure that students’ academic, social, and emotional developmental needs are met.
- College Counselors provide individualized support for graduating students and community-wide workshops about the college process.
- Writing & Tutoring Center creates an academic community of confident writers through labs, workshops, and individual sessions with peer tutors or staff.
