How Maranatha Gives Students Nearly 90 Ways to Explore Beyond the Traditional Curriculum.
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In This Guide
At most high schools, the academic calendar runs the same way from September through June: the same classes, the same schedule, the same routine. At Maranatha High School, a college-preparatory school in the greater Los Angeles area, that routine pauses each winter for something different: a collegiate-style mini-semester called Winter Term.
Quick Answer for Busy Parents
Winter Term is a collegiate-style mini-semester at Maranatha High School, offering roughly 90 unique courses each year outside the traditional academic curriculum. It gives students a structured opportunity to attend workshops and classes on topics they wouldn’t otherwise encounter in a standard high school schedule.
What Winter Term Is
Maranatha describes Winter Term as “much like a collegiate mini-semester,” a deliberate break from the standard rotation of classes that gives students room to explore. This initiative is part of a broader personalized learning philosophy. It’s a genuinely different rhythm from Maranatha’s regular schedule, where classes meet four times a week in 45-minute periods across a rotating calendar built around chapel and a weekly Enrichment period.
How Many Courses Are Offered
Winter Term offers roughly 90 unique courses each year, a genuinely large slate for a school of Maranatha’s size (524 students). That volume of options means Winter Term functions less like a single elective and more like a full alternate curriculum, available for a concentrated stretch of the school year.
What Winter Term Looks Like in Practice
| Detail | Value |
| Format | Collegiate-style mini-semester |
| Course Volume | Roughly 90 unique courses per year |
| Purpose | Workshops and classes outside the traditional academic curriculum |
| Regular Schedule Context | 45-minute periods, 4x/week, rotating around chapel and Enrichment |
Why This Matters for Families Evaluating Maranatha
For families comparing Maranatha against other Los Angeles-area college-prep schools, Winter Term is a concrete way to evaluate how much room a school actually makes for exploration beyond its core curriculum. Combined with the Oliver Honors Institute’s rigorous, UC-recognized coursework, Winter Term suggests a school willing to build real structural space into its calendar for something other than the standard course sequence.
Wondering How Winter Term Fits Your Child’s Interests?
Cardinal Education helps families evaluate how a school’s distinctive programs, like Winter Term, fit a student’s broader interests.
Apply to Maranatha with Top Educational Consultants in LA
Winter Term is one of the clearest signals of how Maranatha thinks about a well-rounded education: not just electives bolted onto a standard schedule, but a genuinely different, collegiate-style block built into the school year. Cardinal Education’s private school admissions consulting helps families understand how programs like Winter Term fit into their child’s broader results at Maranatha.
If you’re an Asian American family researching Maranatha High School, our dedicated guide applies these same fundamentals to Asian American applicants in more detail.
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