The Harker School - Upper School Campus

Overpriced hell hole. if you want your kid to go to a good college or to have a non toxic education do not have them go there. I went there for years and so did my sister. Racism and homophobia were rampant with no punishment. Kids who were friends stop having healthy relationships and go at each others throats over academics. when both my sister and I went there the depression rates were disturbing compared to your average school. At the highschool there is a day known as crying day if I remember correctly when everyone bawls over the fact that none of them got into the school they wanted to. only the top students get into the schools they want typically. all I can say is that its a school that could care less about your family's well being as much as lining their pockets with what should be your college savings. one of my proudest moments in my life was helping a parent save her kid from going to Harker by telling her my experience.
Feb 19th, 2023

Consequently, our son graduated from CAL magna cum laude (Phi Beta Kappa) as a double major and double minor and received the Chancellor's award. He teaches at CAL and is pursuing a PhD.  Essentially, Harker will groom students who are exceptionally motivated in STEM. My son pursued the humanities. The objectives were not complementary.
Apr 27th, 2021

A fantastic place, with solid focus on the kids' success and well-being. It is high-pressure, but rewarding, and it produces self-confident kids that collaborate. Teachers and administration alike are great.
Apr 17th, 2021

The food is amazing, 10/10, keep up the great work! It's very nicely seasoned, and good serving portions.
Apr 6th, 2021

Well-funded but nearly everyone I know from my time there (I graduated class of 2012) talks about the weird toxic culture. It came in many forms: they were relentless about dress code, and for context we did not have students pushing it. It would be nice dresses or modest shorts that were half an inch too short. Classmates have been pulled into offices with male teachers or admin and had their (once again, reasonable) skirts measured behind closed doors. All female students were pulled out of class my sophomore year to be berated (loudly) in an auditorium for dressing like who*es and making male students and teachers uncomfortable. My personal experience is that many teachers could be rude, snide or dismissive, though to be fair I don't know if that's the case at lots of high schools. In one particularly memorable incident, I saw a teacher shake out the leftover water from his water bottle over the heads of students during a school dance. I thought one of the two or three other teachers who saw would say something but they just laughed uncomfortably. The whole school felt weirdly bitter or disdainful towards the kids.For context I was not a bad student, nor did I have disciplinary problems. In fact I had pretty good grades and was active in leadership for a lot of extra-curriculars; I actually went on to attend Stanford. I only add that because I assume a lot of readers might incorrectly assume that only "problem students" find this environment toxic, and I just want you to know that's not true. (For the elite college focused parents: going to Harker won't make your chances significantly better; competition is fierce and my sense is that there is a ceiling on the number of students an elite university will admit from a single private high school. There are better ways to up your chances). Also, once again not sure if this is just normal for Bay Area high schools, but we have had more teacher abuse scandals than I am personally comfortable with. The culture is also such that I am expecting an email from their lawyer once they read this. Message me if you want to know more!
Oct 14th, 2020