Is there or was there a high school in Baltimore, Maryland called something like ‘Poly High School?’ A quick check of the Baltimore City Public School web site brought no joy.
An old friend went to such a school, he told me about it almost thirty years ago. Well, now he is sick and I would like to get him a shirt of something from the place.
Any thoughts on how to proceed?
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute perhaps?
We have a winner! Many thanks.
(Have you noted how many queries have been answered in one post of late? You have to be impressed by your fellow Dopers.)
This was my high school. 
Looks like you have good timing – they’re putting the school store online next week.
Yep, this will work out fine.
What the heck is Poly? Is it an elite school? If so, how did Gene (my old roomie) get in?
Well, I wouldn’t precisely call it elite – it IS a public school after all (i.e. no tuition) – but it is one of the best schools in the area and kids come from around the city to attend. (As opposed to the normal practice of attending the nearest school in your school district.) There are admission requirements – mainly having good grades, which you have to maintain, or you get sent to your zoned school. The school focuses heavily on math, engineering, and hard science (as opposed to social science), although I believe the curricula has gotten a bit more diversified since I left. I used to joke that the closest I got to a fine arts class at Poly was architectual design.
You’ll get a good, fairly concise description of Poly if you go to their aforementioned website and read the article entitled Why is Poly Missing from Newsweek’s List of Top High Schools? A link to it is currently on the front page under the News & Events heading.
One other interesting (non-academic) tidbit is that we have the oldest high school football rivalry in the country, against Baltimore City College.
And they have, or at least used to have, a seriously kick-ass lacrosse team. They steam-rollered us every time we faced them.