Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies

The Maggie L. Walker Governor's School for Government and International Studies (MLWGSGIS) is a public regional magnet high school in Richmond, Virginia. One of the 18 Virginia Governor's Schools, it draws students from 14 jurisdictions: the counties of Chesterfield, Henrico, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, Prince George, Charles City, King and Queen, New Kent and Dinwiddie, and the cities of Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell, and Colonial Heights. As the Governor's School for Government and International Studies, it shared space at Thomas Jefferson High School (TJHS) in the city's West End from its 1991 founding until summer 2001, when it moved into Maggie L. Walker High School after massive renovations. Every year since 2006 the school was recognized by Newsweek as one of the twenty-one most elite public schools in America. In 2013, Maggie Walker was ranked 14th in Newsweek's "Best Public High Schools" In 2014, Maggie Walker was ranked 10th in The Daily Beast's "Best High Schools" and 7th in their "25 Best High Schools in the South." Applying Applicants undergo an application process in which assessment materials and essay prompts are administered. A combination of grades, recommendations, and test results determine the applicants' overall score. All applicants must have completed and passed at least Algebra I or an equivalent math course. It is also recommended that students have completed Honors English, Earth and Life Sciences, and at least one year of a foreign language, but this is not required. Overall, about 16-17% of applicants are accepted into MLWGSGIS out of a pool of around 1200 applicants from all the participating localities, making the freshmen class usually around 190 students. The school grades the applications, but it is the applicant's home school district that decides who is allowed to attend the school based on scores and available funding. Organization Each city or county that wishes to send students to the Governor's School must fund the school for the students that they send, as well as provide busing to and from the school. While the Governor's School allows allotments for each locality that cannot be exceeded, it is the individual localities that ultimately determine their own limit on how many students can be sent within the parameters of the allotment given and available funding.