Story and Photos by Carlee Hite
Rowan Bailey said he was in middle school when he attended a summer camp through WKU’s Center for Gifted Studies. By the end of the program, he said he knew where he wanted to go to school, the Gatton Academy.
The academy is a two-year residential hybrid high school and college science, technology, engineering and math education program, and, according to the academy’s website, students have the opportunity to participate in research with WKU professors, study abroad and attend college courses.
The program is only open to Kentucky residents, and if accepted, the Commonwealth of Kentucky covers tuition, room, board and other fees, according to the academy’s website. Approximately 95 students are accepted into the program each year.
According to the academy’s website, approximately 350 students apply yearly, and approximately 150 will be selected for an interview. After graduation from the academy, students will earn a high school diploma and an associate degree of interdisciplinary studies. Many students also receive a degree from their home high school.
After completion of the program, students of the academy will earn between 60 and 72 college credit hours to apply to the completion of their bachelor’s degree, according to the academy website.
“You can really go in and get the college experience of taking initiative and learning the things that you love,” Bailey said.
Bailey said taking control of his academic experience was one of the main reasons he chose to go to the academy. Another reason, he said, was wanting to be surrounded by people who care about their interests.
Bailey said he recently attended the 2026 K-12 Olympiada of Spoken Russian in the Ohio State University and participates in the school’s Russian Culture Club. He is also involved in Y-Club, philosophy club and Envirothon, which participated in the National Conservation Foundation’s International Envirothon Competition last July.
Bailey said participating in events and clubs has helped him to figure out what he is passionate about.
“I think it helped me understand that you can do one thing in class, and then outside of class you can do another thing and still learn just as much as you did in class,” Bailey said. “You can have, like an adult, who has their work and then has their work at home or their volunteering or their community projects.”
Bailey said most clubs at the academy are student-led, except some service opportunities such as Community Developers and Avatars.
Finn Shirley, a residential counselor at the academy, said that Community Developers work with the residential counselors to create events for their floors and spaces where students can interact and have fun.
He said Avatars are senior students at the academy chosen to serve the school by working with the admissions team and prospective students.
“We try to get a range of students that represent different areas of the state, different academic interests and just different personalities and interests,” Shirley said. “So that students that come to tour Gatton or families that have questions, they can see a little bit of themselves somewhere in our students.”
Shirley said he first learned about the academy while attending camps through the Center for Gifted Studies. After graduating from East Tennessee State University, he later worked for the center and was encouraged to apply for the residential counselor position.
Since being a residential counselor, Shirley said his favorite part has been the relationships he has built with the students.
“It is very cool to see when they’re flourishing and succeeding, and just to notice how we can step in to support that and help them continue on,” Shirley said.
He also said that while comparable in some ways to a traditional high school, the academy is quite different for the most part.
“I would say that it is a completely different experience, having to balance leaving home for the first time and all of those adult aspects of transitioning from high school to college, having to do that while also essentially skipping almost two grades,” Shirley said.
Bailey also said that there are differences between the academy and the general high school experience he had for two years before beginning at Gatton.
“We have independence,” Bailey said. “We have the ability to take initiative and build ourselves an education that can serve us better than any high school education would.”
Bailey also said it takes a certain kind of student to be able to succeed at the academy. Some of the qualities he said were being able to take responsibility for your actions, being able to take initiative and enjoying school.
“Not liking school at Gatton is not going to get you very far, because there’s a lot of school to do, and that’s mostly what we do every day,” Bailey said.
Drake Calhoon, an undergraduate senior biology major, is a graduate from the academy. She said that when it comes to deciding if you think the academy would be a good fit for you, it depends on what you are looking for.
“I think Gatton gave me a lot of things I didn’t know I was looking for, and maybe didn’t give me the things that I was, but worth it overall for me,” Calhoon said. “I think if you’re not interested in STEM, Gatton probably isn’t the place for you.”
She said if you have an interest in science, want college credit and are up for a challenge, Gatton may be the place for you.
Calhoon is currently preparing for law school, where she said she aims to go into healthcare law, bioethics or something else adjacent to STEM. According to “The Gatton Academy: By The Numbers,” 76.8% of the academy graduates go on to pursue a career in STEM, while 13.5% are non-STEM and the other 9.7% are STEM-related.
After graduation, Bailey said he plans on majoring in either architecture or a foreign language. He discovered his passion for both through the academy.
Bailey said students at the academy aren’t that different from traditional college students. He said they participate in class and extracurriculars, but he doesn’t feel Gatton students stand out from the WKU student body.
“So we’re just there, everywhere, ” Bailey said. “Almost all WKU students have probably had a class with a Gatton student, but they might not know it.”