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Revolution Prep, an West Coast tutoring and test-preparation service founded in 2002, recently published a webinar entitled, , in which Thomas Aquinas ������ý features prominently.

“I can say, with all the schools I’ve seen in the state of California, this is easily the most unique that I have seen — it is a special place,” begins Rob Schwartz, a college counselor with Premier ������ý Guidance in Westlake Village. Mr. Schwartz goes on to call the ������ý a “a gorgeous, gorgeous, school” in “a really serious Catholic environment” which, thanks to a robust financial aid program, “is very financial reasonable.”

Yet the co-host saves his most effusive praise for the ������ý’s program of Catholic liberal education:

You’ve got Socratic seminar discussions. What does that mean? It means you’re going to walk into a room, your classroom, it’s going to have 17 maybe 18 students — it’s always going to be 17 or 18 students — and instead of a professor leading a discussion or lecturing, there are no lectures. There is what we refer to as a “tutor,” but not a professor, and that Ph.D. or M.D. is essentially going to lead the class in discussion … There are no current writers looking back at history, or looking back at biology, or looking back at any other subject and telling you about what happened. Your textbooks are from the original greats themselves …

So you’re learning geometry from Pythagoras. You’re going deep, deep, deep in the history. Maybe you’re learning theoretical physics from Einstein. And you’re reading his texts, which in and of itself is an incredible challenge just to learn the language. And guess what? You’re going to be completely fluent in Latin by the time it’s done.

There is a lot of personal and professional growth going on here. I’ve sat in on a number of those classes myself. These are essentially student-run learning centers. They are pressing each other, and they’re testing each other, and they’re helping each other figure out proofs for what we have learned over the past 2,000 years. And it was truly eye-opening.

“For the student who loves to read and loves critical thinking,” Mr. Schwartz , “this is truly a special place.”