Cynthia Nixon Addresses Hunter College High School Graduates

-- One-Quarter of the ‘04 Class Headed to Ivy League Colleges --

Date: June 24, 2004
Contact: Meredith Halpern (meredith.halpern@hunter.cuny.edu)
Phone: (212) 772- 4068

(New York, NY) – June 24, 2004 – Actress Cynthia Nixon will be the honored alumna at the graduation ceremony for Hunter College High School’s Class of 2004 on June 24 and will receive the Distinguished Graduate Award for her successful career as an actress and a civic activist for public education.  The Wall Street Journal recently named Hunter College High School as the top public school in the country, judged by the number of students accepted into the Ivy League and other top colleges.

Nixon, 1984 graduate of Hunter High School, is a strong supporter of the New York City public schools and is actively working with the Alliance for Quality Education, a group that fights for funding and quality public education across the state.  As an actress, Nixon has appeared on the stage, on the screen and on television.  She is probably best known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes, the high-powered lawyer on HBO’s Sex and the City, for which she received Golden Globe and Emmy nominations.

In addition to Nixon, City Council Speaker Gifford Miller and Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab will address the graduates.

This year’s class of 186 graduates features 52 National Merit Semifinalists and 10 National Achievement Semifinalists.  One fourth of the class will be attending Ivy League colleges.  Of the class, 14 students were admitted to Harvard, 11 admitted to Yale, 14 were admitted to Cornell, 14 to University of Pennsylvania, 8 to Columbia, 7 to Princeton, 6 to Dartmouth and 4 to Brown.  In addition, eight were admitted to MIT.

About Hunter College High School
Hunter College High School, part of the Hunter College Campus Schools, is a combination of junior and senior high school with an enrollment of about 1,200 students.  Each year approximately 2,000 sixth-grade students from the five boroughs of New York City take the Hunter College High School entrance exam, competing for roughly 200 spaces in the entering class.  The seventh grade is the only entry point.  The school is publicly funded (tuition-free), chartered by the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York, and administered by Hunter College.

About Hunter
With a highly diverse student population of more than 20,000, Hunter is the largest college in the City University of New York (CUNY) system and the first choice among all CUNY applicants. Founded in 1870, the College offers more than 170 undergraduate and graduate programs. Hunter is noted for its professional schools in education, health sciences, nursing and social work, as well as its excellence in the liberal arts. Heralded as the "Crown Jewel of CUNY" by The Princeton Review, Hunter College has a distinguished reputation for nurturing talented minority scientists and meeting the challenge of providing high-quality science education in the 21st century. The College also oversees the Hunter College Campus Schools serving gifted and talented students, preschool through grade 12. For more information about Hunter College, please visit our Web site at http://www.hunter.cuny.edu.

Back to Top