Nikan High School


Nikan High School is a boys-only school located in the north of Tehran, Iran. Nikan is an ancient Persian-Zoroastrian name meaning "all the goodness in the world".
Hundreds of members of the Iranian political or religious elite have sent their sons to this school, which is famous for its high quality education in math, physics, and natural sciences, as well as an emphasis on Shia religious values and teachings.
The school is closely associated with Alavi High School.
Nikan graduates have strong ties and form communities in different parts of the world, especially in Europe and North America. Each class has a designated number called "doreh" which shows the number of years from the foundation of the school after which the class entered the first grade.

Admissions

Nikan High school remains one of the most difficult schools to gain admission to. Usually, about 80% of the 8th grade class continues to 12th grade and admission past 8th grade is extremely rare. The admission process consists of an entrance exam and an interview with the candidate and his parents.
In the summer of 2011, around 250 students took Nikan's entrance exam for admission into 9th grade, from whom less than about 10% were chosen. Those students were then interviewed, along with their families, and about 10 students were eventually granted offers of admission.

Awards

Several students from Nikan High School have been awarded medals at international math and science Olympiads such as IMO, IPHO, ICHO, and IBO. The school's robotics team has won multiple national and international awards, such as:
The school provides a high quality of education, but its reputation is mainly due to its highly political and religious environment.
Nikan is very stringent about certain rules for its students. For example, the school emphasized simple short haircuts for the good of the students.
It can be argued that because of its exclusivity, some Nikan students find it difficult to later integrate in the wider society. That being said, there is a strong sense of comradeship among them even after graduation.

Education

The Iranian high school system offers three majors to all students: Math-Physics, Natural Sciences, and Humanities.
Nikan mainly focuses on Math-Physics. That does not mean that other subjects are not taught at the school. As part of the Math-Physics curriculum, courses such as biology, religious studies, English, Arabic, economics, sociology, geography, and history are offered.
The main concern for most high school students in Iran is the Konkour. Nikan hires well-experienced teachers, some of whom having scored the highest marks in the Konkour. Nikan also hires a few teachers each year who have taken part in the preparation of questions for previous years' examinations. Hence, the students are very well prepared. They generally perform very well in the Konkour.

Facilities

One of the largest and most luxurious high schools in the country, the campus is located in the famous Fereshteh neighborhood of Tehran. The school has three buildings: one, the main building, includes the classrooms, mosque, amphitheatre, library, physics and chemistry laboratories, computer room, and a fully equipped robotics workshop. The second building is an indoor multi-purpose gym which offers volleyball, basketball, futsal and squash. The third building was completed in the summer of 2011 and includes multiple research labs, some extra classes and some offices for paper works. The campus has an outdoor track and field course, a soccer field, a badminton court, two volleyball courts, and a basketball court. There is also a flower bed and a pond in the yard which has become the house of two swans.