By Lucas Shaw

New Horizons School, an Islamic elementary school in Pasadena highlighted last October by the Chronicle in an article entitled “School has disproportionately small number of Muslims,” will send a seventh grade student to Harvard-Westlake for the first time next fall. Director of Admission Elizabeth Gregory will also visit New Horizons next year, the Admission Office said.

“We are trying to visit as many new schools as possible,” she said.
The large Jewish population at Harvard-Westlake had deterred applications in the past, New Horizons Principal Nahid Ansari said this fall.

Adam Sieff ’07 wrote the October article and encouraged Ansari to talk with her students about Harvard-Westlake as a secondary school option and one of her sixth graders applied.

“I recognized the name of the sending school from the Chronicle story,” Gregory said. “After we made our decision I said, ‘this one is for Adam.’”

New Horizons is just one of 10 new sending schools to Harvard-Westlake’s seventh grade, and the Admission Office is looking to expand that number.