University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois

University Laboratory High School is a laboratory school located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, that has students from 8th grade (roughly age 13) through 12th grade. "Uni High" or "Uni", as it is familiarly known among the students, is unusual in that the lowest grade is a combined "subfreshman" grade, to which both 6th and 7th graders are allowed to apply. Therefore, many students end up effectively skipping the seventh grade, going directly to the subfreshman year. It is not uncommon for students to graduate at the age of 16 or 17.

Related Topics:
Laboratory school - University of Illinois - Urbana, Illinois

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Uni is a publicly-funded but competitive enrollment school. It receives support from state taxes, but not from local property taxes, as it is not in a school district. For many years, it was funded by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a place to experiment with educational curricula, but the University of Illinois withdrew most of its support in the early 1980s. The "laboratory" aspect persists in certain classes; for example, an experimental math course was taught in the early 2000s.

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Uni has many famous alumni, including three Nobel Prize laureates: Philip W. Anderson (class of 1940) won the prize for physics in 1977, Hamilton O. Smith (class of 1948) received the award for medicine in 1978, and James Tobin (class of 1935) won the 1981 prize for economics. Uni is also alma mater to the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George Will and the best-selling author Iris Chang.

Related Topics:
Nobel Prize - Philip W. Anderson - Hamilton O. Smith - James Tobin - Pulitzer Prize - George Will - Iris Chang

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