On the College Track
education, nazareth academy, our lady of victory, st. joseph's high school, trinity episcopal school and our lady of the gulf, victoria,
With nearly all of its graduates headed to college, St. Joseph’s High School is a well-respected final stop for Victoria’s excellent private-school system.
Four lower-grade schools – Our Lady of Victory, Nazareth Academy, Trinity Episcopal School and Our Lady of the Gulf in nearby Port Lavaca – all feed into St. Joseph’s, which is the largest Catholic private school in town, dating back to 1868. The 413-student school handles grades nine through 12, and the administration likes to take a look at each and every applicant, says Bill McArdle, president and principal.
“We’re not an exclusive school in terms of enrollment or the students that enter the door,” McArdle says. “We’re very open in our enrollment here, and at the end of four years, 98 percent of 100 percent of those kids are being accepted into college.”
St. Joseph’s went co-ed in the 1970s after the Brothers of Mary turned it over to the Sisters of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament and nearby Nazareth became a K-8 facility.
The school also does very well in the scholarship sweepstakes.
“We receive somewhere between $1.5 million and $2.5 million in scholarships, and we traditionally lead the area in National Merit scholars,” McArdle says.
The school also does well on the athletic front, recently opening the O’Connor Athletic Complex, with four softball and two football/soccer fields, about a mile from campus.
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Story by Joe Morris
Photo by J. Kyle Keener
