Northridge Preparatory School is a private independent school for boys in grades 6-12, with the mission of “building men of intellect and character who love God.” Founded in 1976 in the Chicago metro area, today it has about 370 students and is recognized for its high quality liberal arts education, character formation, and environment of freedom, energy, and camaraderie. Learn more at its website. It is affiliated with Opus Dei (see more here), a personal prelature of the Catholic Church.

Educational Model

Northridge follows a traditional Liberal Arts curriculum, which includes strong STEM programs, four years of philosophy in high school (one semester per year), Latin or Spanish, and Theology. Northridge emphasizes co-curricular involvement as an essential component of its education, encouraging students to participate in more than one of its eight sports, and/or drama, music, robotics, debate, and many more such teams. Yearly trips and overnights help build a spirit of adventure. We offer mass daily, with a full time Chaplain who meets individually with our students. All such activities are invitations to our students to grow as men, to serve others, and to live a life of deep relationships and deep faith.

Character Formation

Our emphasis on freedom avoids the use of rules and demerit-style systems. This has the potential to (and does) create a wonderful environment of high energy and camaraderie, where students are potentially more thoughtful and intentional about their values. In such an environment, teachers lack the structure of rules to ensure discipline and instead must invest in their relationships with students and learn to actively engage and lead them to high standards of behavior. Teaching our teachers how to do this required hard-won insights and practical strategies, which form an important part of our offerings in the Northridge Institute.

About Northridge