A Profound Difference
Cortona Academy Compared to National Franchises & Other Private Schools
Unlike National Franchises & Other Private Schools...
Cortona Academy provides an unparalleled approach to college preparation by using a proprietary teaching process, honed over its 32 years history. We work with a tenured staff of professional educators personally committed to each enrolled student’s success and happiness. Enrollment in Cortona is a process ensuring both student achievement and parent confidence. When our success blueprint is embraced and supported by dedicated parents, students achieve the goals we jointly establish. At graduation, we revel at the levels of accomplishment achieved by our graduates, all who reach their utmost potentials and enter great colleges…WITH SCHOLARSHIPS!
Our Staff
“I choose to work at Cortona Academy because I know that we are saving lives.
I see it every year in the kids who graduate and move on to do such wonderful things. I see it in the faces of the children when they understand something for the first time, and I especially see it when we help someone better themselves.
It is a priceless thing to be able to help mold these students, and it is something that I am able to do every day.”
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Our tenured staff of highly-qualified professors design programs focused on your and your child’s personal objectives. Each student, whether learning-challenged or a prodigy, is taken into high regard and respected at all times. We focus on the student’s actual potential, plus the hopes and dreams of both the student and their parents. Our job is to help your child get into college WITH SCHOLARSHIPS, and we do this in an unstressed atmosphere. We ask, “What do you want to do? What do you want to be?” Then, we provide the courses, professors and internships to make it happen.
Individualized student schedules create a trusting, student-teacher bond. Cortona students can feel and be assured that they can find understanding, compassion, and kindness with their Cortona Academy professors.
Who is on your child’s “team,” besides the parents? What is your child’s support system? A priest, rabbi, minister, coach, mentor, therapist, grandparent? If the parent chooses, these invaluable “others” are invited to all Cortona Academy events, banquets (monthly) and field trips. The more the merrier! The benefit of involving others in the child’s educational experience is obvious. The student knows he/she is not alone, and that we respect their lives, cultures, and background. This is paramount to the every Cortona student’s self-esteem.
Experience and knowledge is everything! Because our teachers have BOTH college and undergraduate teaching experience, this is a critical advantage to our students. Most even serve as mentors. All are professionals in their subject fields, which is absolutely primary to helping advise students and help with internships. This creates both a stable learning environment and stable staff who are “pros” in catapulting to higher levels both the gifted as well as the learning-challenged.
Because of Cortona’s on-site educational experts and powerfully dedicated, experienced staff, we help the learning-challenged or highly-gifted achieve PROPER educational accommodations and goals, not just while at Cortona Academy, but for PSAT/SAT testing, and during college and even for grad and professional schools! When called upon, we never stop helping our students! When they need us, they know they can depend on us. We are, essentially, the “family behind the family.”
Class Sizes & More!
“Needless to say, Cortona Academy is anything but ordinary. Now, I am not just referring to its size. No, that little extra I’m talking about is that little extra time to sleep in the mornings, that little extra attention you get in class to help you understand, that little extra time you have for summer, if you finish your work on time, that is!
I only wish I could express my gratitude and appreciation for all of the things this school has done for me in its entirety, but frankly it would take longer than a day, and much more than a single sheet of paper.”
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Group classes (average 4 students per class) are paired with one-on-one tutorials. This “hybrid” is not available anywhere in the DC Metro Area, creating well-rounded, focused students, who actually can function in classes, can speak, listen, and participate, which fosters intellectual development for college and life success. Ask yourself, what college in America is one-to-one? When necessary for students needing to catch up, or for acceleration, our students may take only one course 1/1 to achieve direct attention from the teacher. All other courses are in a group setting. This “hybrid approach” is powerful, ultimately developing well-rounded, confident students that can comfortably and appropriately move forward toward great futures.
Colleges seek well-rounded students. They look at more than just grades, SAT scores, volunteer hours, clubs and sports...they look at the student’s resume. Who is the student? What makes this student special? Because we have been in the DC Metro Area for nearly 30 years, we have developed wide-ranging contacts at universities and throughout industry. With these contacts, our students are able to do internships which prove critical in the college application process and in helping students sample certain professional fields BEFORE they choose a major in college! We even help them during and after college. To our knowledge, no private school in the entire DC Metro area does this for all their students. Cortona Academy has been doing this for 30 years.
Our focus is on offering a happy environment for your child, with our project-based curriculum and up to 20 field trips per year. Motivation and a vision of the future is only created when students are actually in society, out of the school building experiencing the myriad cultural, scientific and technological wonders of the DC Metro region. However, we have to absolutely ENSURE that your child is academically sound. THIS is critical, so that parents are not wasting their money on a happy environment WITHOUT the curriculum to back-up the student’s future.
Our proprietary HTS-3 (Hi-tech Speed Study Systems) was developed in the 1980’s and perfected in the 1990’s, and have been taught to nearly 2200 Cortona Academy students, in every, single class. Our students take these powerful HTS-3 systems to college, graduate and professional schools. This system bypasses learning differences and enables the student to self-organize and focus. It is an invaluable skill for their education and future jobs.
Our curriculum is both accredited nationally and used internationally. Parents can attest to the level of the credits achieved at Cortona Academy by observing a sample of the colleges to which our graduates have attended.
For the past 30 years Cortona’s students and parents have donated immense amounts of time and money to improve the lives of needy children and families in the Metro area. This is an important part of our Cortona Mission Statement. Even during school hours, we focus on community service and community betterment. Unlike regular public or private schools, we offer each student their own class schedule, and work their volunteer hours around this schedule. At the beginning of every school year, we ask what organizations they would like to be involved with and then we help our students find ways to do community outreach during the school day, weekends, and/or evenings.
Extreme effort is made by Cortona’s professional staff in helping with each student’s college application plan. From the very beginning of enrollment at Cortona Academy, all students are given a “Plan of Success.” Students are encouraged to “shoot for the stars, then settle on the moon.” Students gradually begin to raise their expectations of themselves, because they experience the power of a successful plan. Then, when applying to colleges, we are beside them, fighting for their futures. Cortona Academy helps all our students get college scholarships by understanding that schools cannot just prepare a student to complete high school…part of their “job” is to help the student and parent look ahead and have a goal. No outside college coaches are ever needed. We do all of this, on site, which is how we developed our incredible reputation over 30 years. We “take care of our own.”
History and Costs
“”What is Cortona?” is a question I’ve been asked many times. First, I’d like to tell you what it is not. It’s not a panacea for all difficulties and differences. Like anything worthwhile, success at Cortona requires hard work, dedication, and commitment from the student, the teachers, and the parents, and time for the methods to be accepted and practiced.
It is a unique learning environment with a staff of the most excellent teachers I have ever met. They encompass all aspects of teaching: informing, supporting, facilitating, encouraging, caring and accommodating while striving to bring out the optimum performance in each student.”
Parent
Review, Cortona Academy
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Because of Cortona’s long-standing history in this area, we have developed an A-team group of educators, most who have been at Cortona Academy for 10+ years! Parents can depend on Cortona’s stable, invested, tenured staff to educate their children to the highest standards, not just courses approved by the County or the State, but accredited NATIONALLY. Cortona courses are some of the best in the country, which is why they are transferable anywhere. Our teachers believe in our mission, work hard with their students to uplift their chances for getting into great colleges, and never let the students down. Our instructors can be counted on to “be there,” supporting and educating, semester after semester, year after year.
Serious private academies in the DC Area, such as Cortona Academy, invest in buying their own facility. Cortona’s families have pointed out to us that this tells the consumer looking for private education that we cannot easily just move to another rental if our program fails, nor can building management ask us to move. WE are the management, have a long-term plan to provide on-going, stable education and are committed to do so…for your family, your children, and then for your grandchildren.
We do this all as a part of the student’s Success Plan. It is all included in your tuition. This is all a part of our Cortona Experience, one that is unmatched in the DC Metro Area for its focus on the individual. It is all a part of the Success Plan, which is slowly and carefully worked into each student’s curriculum. No outside tutors are ever needed.
Cost for a brilliant, Cortona education is based upon:
- What your child needs to move to the ultimate level of their potential and,
- What YOU can afford to make this dream education come true!
Cortona Academy is distinguishable from national franchises and other private schools because our tuition does not have a range! Our costs are individually determined!
After a Placement Test for your child, parents are given many, many choices for an educational plan that totally fits their child’s needs and aspirations. Financial Aid is then available through application to our Board. We have our own Financial Aid application, which is available online or in-person. Eighty percent of our students receive some form of Financial Aid, including scholarships based on merit.
Upon application, the Board comprehensively evaluates all aspects of your family’s financial situation and determines a set cost for your child’s tuition. Parents can then accurately assess the full year’s cost…up front with nothing hidden.
Cortona Academy looks at the whole picture, the whole child.
At Cortona Academy, we guarantee that your financial investment in your child’s future produces measurable results. We have a 100% college acceptance rate with MERIT SCHOLARSHIPS! Our results are undeniable!
Your child’s entire educational future is a priority at Cortona Academy, beyond just their high school years, unlike most educational institutions. You should not have to pay for a private junior and senior high education, as well as paying for college. There needs to be a positive return on your investment. No other private schools can prove this; we can and we do.
Choose Cortona Academy to ensure your child receives an uniquely kind and brilliant education…that is worth your hard-earned money!