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Independent school in Carpinteria, California, United States

Cate School is a highly selective, coeducational university preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12 located in Carpinteria, California, eleven miles from Santa Barbara. In 2012, the school had 270 students, who came from 31 states and 18 foreign countries. In 2022, Niche ranked Cate School the best boarding school in California and the 13th best in the United States.

Cate School was founded in 1910 by Curtis Wolsey Cate, a 25 year old graduate of Roxbury Latin School and Harvard University. Originally called the Miramar School, its classes were held in the Gane House, a leased private residence in Santa Barbara's Mission Canyon. (The Gane House, would be destroyed in the Jesusita Fire in 2009.) A prep school for boys in grades 7 to 12, its first academic year enrolled 12 students. In 1911, Cate moved his school to the Stewart Walcott Ranch in the Carpinteria Valley and renamed it the Santa Barbara School (or SBS). The extra space allowed him to pursue a program he had admired in his year of teaching English at the nearby Thacher School: each student was given a horse to care for, and much of the school's early campus and activities were based on horseback riding. Cate would later write, "The horse was as much a part of our lives as the book. Afternoons, mounted for a canter before baseball or for practice on the gymkhana field; Saturdays and Sunday, off for long rides or camping learning from nature and the care of an animal larger than one's self, lessons not taught in the classrooms." In its early years, the school's buildings lacked heat, hot water, or electricity. SBS's first graduate was Dohrmann Pischel in 1914. In 1914, Cate accepted Walcott's offer to sell his 150 acre "mesa property", a former ostrich farm. The school moved immediately to the southwest mesa slopes, and then again in 1929 to its current location atop a hill within the property near the Santa Ynez Mountains. The first permanent campus buildings on the Cate Mesa were designed between 1928 and 1929 by architect Reginald Davis Johnson, son of the school's first president of the board of trustees, Episcopal bishop Joseph Horsfall Johnson. Campus buildings have since been designed in keeping with Johnson's original Monterey Colonial style.

Cate's total enrollment had increased to 40 in 1919, and the school finally had enough boys to field athletic teams to compete with other private schools in the area. The first and most obvious of these was the Thacher School, which would become the traditional arch rivalry of both schools. Cate and Thacher competed in baseball in Cate's first academic year despite the former's meager enrollment, and Cate lost the game 60 4. Cate recorded its first win in baseball over Thacher in 1921 thanks to the surge of enrollment following World War I. and the competitiveness of their early baseball and equestrian competitions likely contributed to the rivalry as it stands today over 100 years later.

The Great Depression and World War II brought economic hardship and declining enrollment. Curtis Cate was forced to cut costs. The school's official colors changed from purple and silver to blue and white due to dye shortages. In 1942, the school ended its distinctive horse program. Of Cate, Stanley Woodworth, a distinguished former faculty member who served during his tenure, wrote: "Yes, he was imperious and regal but that's what kings are supposed to be. You should not infer from this that he was not revered, respected and loved by the boys and teachers for the 40 years he was its headmaster. He had principles he would not compromise, and he had a genuine interest in each boy, which did not come to an end when the boy left the Mesa, but followed him wherever he went." Cate died on January 3, 1976, aged 91. He is buried beneath Katherine Thayer Cate Memorial Chapel (named in honor of his wife), at the center of the Cate School campus.

In 2020 and 2021, Cate was rocked by allegations of faculty sexual abuse of students going back decades. As well, a newly hired faculty member attempted to seduce a female student in 2020. Dismissed, he was arrested the next year for further improprieties at another school. In October 2020, Cate hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into the allegations. In December 2021, the firm published a report naming seven faculty perpetrators and discussing allegations against an additional ten unnamed school employees. The abuses included one incident in the 1960s and more in the 1980s and early 1990s. In October 2021, Cate established a Sexual Abuse Survivors Therapy Fund administered by RAINN.

As of 2012, the academic curriculum had 101 courses with more than 40 advanced and honors courses. The average class size was 11 with a 5:1 student faculty ratio. The school also allows independent study projects through the directed studies program and science research courses. Freshmen and sophomores are required to take courses in English, History, Art, Mathematics, Science, and Human Development, as well as a foreign language with which the student is not already familiar. Juniors and seniors can choose from over 35 elective courses such as Oceanography, Comparative Government, and Film Studies. From 2009 13, the most popular college selections of Cate graduates were New York University, University of Southern California, University of Chicago, and Stanford University. In 2016, Niche ranked Cate School the 12th best private school in the nation, Business Insider ranked it 16th (and fourth most selective), and toptestprep. com ranked it 13th.

All students are involved in an extracurricular program that includes athletics, drama, music, dance, community service and an extensive outdoors program which allows students to engage in many activities such as taking students surfing, sea kayaking, surf kayaking, hiking, rock climbing, backpacking, mountain biking, and rafting. Interscholastic athletic teams compete in squash, water polo, lacrosse, tennis, cross country, volleyball, football, soccer, basketball, track, baseball, softball, and surfing. Intramurals include ultimate frisbee, weight training, Tae Kwan Do, dance, and the aforementioned outdoors program. In addition to the usual clubs and activities, Cate includes a 24 page newspaper, El Batidor, a drama society that produces several productions each year, a literary magazine, The Cate Review, and numerous musical groups that perform in concert and in what are known as "coffee house" presentations. Other sample clubs include: Mock Trial, the Pirate Club (ARRR), Junior Statesmen of America, the Martial Arts Club, Blue Crew, the Black Student Union (BSU), Ross Robins Club for Equality (RRCE), and the Film Society. Cate School is home to a Student Faculty Senate. The only official legislative body on campus, the Student Faculty Senate is composed of both elected senators and appointed officials and deals with legislation concerning all aspects of community life. The senate is chaired by the Student Body President, the only official elected by a community wide vote. Student senators are elected by their respective classes. Two others systems the school has in place are the Prefect and Teaching Assistant (T. A.) programs. Prefects are elected at the end of their junior year by students and faculty to serve as leaders, role models, and "big brothers and sisters" in the dorms. T. A. s work with the Human Development department in their Sophomore and Freshman Seminars. Students are also involved in service projects in the community. Students help tutor local schoolchildren, visit with the elderly and disabled, and work on local environmental improvement projects. Faculty and students also travel regularly to northern Mexico to work on community construction projects and help with children and their families in the Los Niños program, a Cate tradition for more than 30 years. Through the international Round Square network students also have an opportunity to travel abroad for community service, work projects, and exchange programs.