Loyola Jesuit College

Campus

Loyola Jesuit College is located on the outskirts of Abuja. It opened its gates on October 2, 1996. Funds to construct the school were provided by the New York province of the Society of Jesus and The United States Agency for International Development, Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. The Federal Government of Nigeria provided the land under a 99-year lease agreement with the Society of Jesus. College facilities include four large classroom and laboratory buildings, three dormitories accommodating 300 boys, one dormitory accommodating 300 girls, a chapel, dining hall, multi-purpose "Memorial" hall, Jesuit residence, and duplex bungalows for all the lay staff. The dormitories are Connelly, Loyola, Regis, and Xavier. Connelly is named after Cornelia Connelly, the founder of the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus who are on the College staff. The names of the others come from the Jesuit saints Ignatius Loyola, John Francis Regis, and Francis Xavier. The 70.4-acre (285,000 m²) campus is fenced to secure the safety of the students. Upon entering the LJC campus via the front gates, a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola is seen presenting his knightly sword to the Lord, to become a Cabellero de Cristo, "Knight for Christ."

Admissions

Loyola Jesuit College is one of the most academically selective secondary schools in Nigeria, but welcomes boys and girls of all faiths. In the year 2010, 5000 wrote the school entrance exam and LJC accepted 100, or 2% of its applicants. It is one of the first schools in Nigeria to implement a strictly online application policy. Prospective students both apply online and receive their results online. LJC does not accept transfers: students must enter the school into First Year.

Student activities

The college supports dozens of organized student activities. According to the college's website, "Loyola Jesuit College has broad goals for the development of its students: some of those goals are fostered by the academic program, but many of those goals are fostered only outside the classroom, through the school's extracurricular and formational programs." The school is one of the most noted in the annual Cowbell Mathematics Competition.

Student groups & programs

Most of the groups at Loyola Jesuit College were formed and are student run.

Sosoliso plane crash

At first students from Port Harcourt travelled between school and their homes via buses on the roads. Rising crime along roads during the 1990s made parents believe that road travel was too dangerous. In 2001, when Sosoliso Airlines began services between Port-Harcourt and Abuja, parents placed their children on the flights.

On December 10, 2005, Loyola Jesuit College lost 60 students in the crash of Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145. Among the many students who lost their lives was a family of three siblings and the Head Boy of the school at the time. The crash claimed 107 lives with two survivors, one of whom was Kechi Okwuchi, a student at Loyola Jesuit College. Kechi was treated at Milpark Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, and at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Galveston, Texas, United States. A new multi-purpose auditorium, Memorial Hall, was built in memory of the students who died in the crash.

Vice Principal-Student Life

Alumni

Loyola Jesuit College graduates have been accepted in top universities around the world. This includes Ivy League colleges in the U.S. such as Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Cornell University, as well as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, The Johns Hopkins University, Stanford University, Emory University, Georgetown University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Notre Dame, Purdue University, Illinois Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, Fairfield University, Boston University, Fordham University, Northeastern University, West Virginia University, Drexel University, Oklahoma State University, Howard University, Texas Southern University, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia, University of Waterloo, University of Nottingham, New York University, University College London, University of Edinburgh, Cambridge University, Oxford University, Imperial College London, Canisius College, London School of Economics, Covenant University, University of Ibadan, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Obafemi Awolowo University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Lagos, California Polytechnic State University.

Notable alumni