The North-East comprehensive school caught up in a row about elitism in universities when Laura Spence was rejected by Oxford is offering degree-standard courses to sixth-formers.
Monkseaton Language College, in Whitley Bay, north Tyneside, has been awarded a Government grant to spread its expertise to other schools in the area.
Its link with fee-paying Church High School, in Newcastle, and the Open University has been recognised with a £60,000 award from the Department for Education and Skills.
Ms Spence is at Harvard University, in the US, after she failed to win a place at Magdalen College, in 2000.
Her rejection, branded "scandalous" by Chancellor Gordon Brown, sparked a national debate about whether some universities discriminated against state school pupils.
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