Academy for Math, Engineering, and Science
Encyclopedia
The Academy for Math, Engineering, & Science (AMES), is a charter
Charter school
Charter schools are primary or secondary schools that receive public money but are not subject to some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter...

 high school serving grades 9-12 in Murray Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. AMES is closely affiliated with the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...

. Students attending AMES are able to take University of Utah courses, taught in AMES classrooms by University of Utah professors, at the same time that they are completing their normal high school graduation requirements. University courses currently taught at AMES include: calculus, physics, chemistry, statistics, college algebra, writing and humanities.

AMES is a free (publicly funded) high school and the university classes which students take while at AMES are also provided free of the normal university tuition charge. Enrollment is open to all students living anywhere in the Salt Lake Valley. Each year, new students are selected based on a random lottery from the applications received. Previous grades and test scores are not considered in the admissions process.

AMES is located in the same building that houses Cottonwood High School
Cottonwood High School (Utah)
Cottonwood High School is a public high school located in Murray, Utah. Founded in 1970 by Tyson Burton after the Granite School District condemned the property and obtained the land from farmers, it is regarded as one of Utah's best high schools for its highly regarded campus and strong academic...

 but it is not actually part of Cottonwood High. Although the two schools are separate entities, they do have a class sharing agreement which allows AMES students to take certain classes that Cottonwood teaches but AMES does not. These classes include: music, drama, driver's ed, sports, and a few others. (The agreement does not allow Cottonwood students to take AMES classes with the exception of Arabic.)

AMES was founded in 2003 as part of a state initiative known as the New Century High Schools. It is intended to be an alternative to the traditional type of high school, and as such AMES limits its enrollment to keep a "small school" environment. Total enrollment is capped at about 450 students.

The school opened with start-up funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest transparently operated private foundation in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family"...

 as part of their Early College High School Initiative. It receives on-going financial support from the state of Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

as well as various corporate donors and charitable foundations.
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