Saint Ignatius College Preparatory | |
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Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam
For the Greater Glory of God
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Address | |
2001 37th Avenue San Francisco, California United States |
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Information | |
Type | Private, college-prep |
Religious affiliation(s) | Roman Catholic, Jesuit |
Established | 1855 |
Grades | 9 - 12 |
Gender | Coeducational |
Enrollment | 1,468 (2012-13) |
Campus | Urban |
Color(s) | Red and Blue |
Mascot | Wildcats |
Average SAT scores | 1788 |
Publication |
The Quill (literary) Genesis (alumni) |
Newspaper | Inside SI |
Yearbook | Ignatian |
Tuition | $21,290 (2016-2017) |
Website | siprep.org |
St. Ignatius College Preparatory (SI) is a private, Catholic "preparatory" school in the Jesuit tradition, serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1855. Located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco, in the Sunset District of San Francisco, St. Ignatius is one of the oldest secondary schools in the U.S. state of California.
St. Ignatius was founded as a one-room schoolhouse on Market Street by Fr. Anthony Maraschi, a Jesuit priest, just after the California Gold Rush in 1855. Maraschi paid $11,000 for the property which was to become the original church and schoolhouse. The church opened on July 15, 1855, and three months later, on October 15, the school opened its doors to its first students.
SI was the high school division of what later became the University of San Francisco, but it has since split from the university and changed locations five times due to the growth of the student body and natural disaster. In the 1860s, the school built a new site, adjacent to the first, on Market Street in downtown San Francisco. In 1880, SI moved its campus to a location on Van Ness Avenue in the heart of San Francisco, and by 1883, SI had become the largest Jesuit school in the nation.
Within 26 years of the relocation, however, St. Ignatius would be completely destroyed. Though the school would survive the tremors of the 1906 earthquake with only moderate damage, the subsequent fires destroyed the school and church, forcing SI to find a new location near Golden Gate Park, a hastily constructed "temporary" wooden building, affectionately known as the "Shirt Factory", which housed the school for more than 20 years, from 1906-29.
In 1927, the high school was separated from the university, becoming St. Ignatius High School. Two years later, SI relocated its campus once more, this time to Stanyan Street, where it remained for 40 years. In the fall of 1969, Father Harry Carlin moved SI to its current Sunset District campus, whereupon the current name, St. Ignatius College Preparatory, was adopted.