The Early College at Guilford (ECG) is a high school with approximately 200 students located in Greensboro, North Carolina. A magnet school in the Guilford County Schools system, it is North Carolina's first early college high school. The school offers a writing intensive, fast-paced curriculum in partnership with Guilford College, a selective, national liberal arts institution. Students take honors and advanced placement courses in the ninth and tenth grades and college courses with undergraduate students taught by college professors in grades eleven and twelve. Students graduate with a high school diploma and up to two years of college credit from Guilford College. Though a public school in the Guilford County, North Carolina school system, it practices rigorous selection methods for admissions. To join, one must submit a written application to the Early College at Guilford and, as of 2006, participate in an on-campus examination, currently involving an essay and math portion. In the US News "Best High Schools of 2009", The Early College ranked seventeenth out of 20,000+ schools examined.