Beacon Academy

Beacon Academy is a facility for training teams of fighters to slay the various monsters that plague the world. The academy is run by Headmaster Ozpin.

Description
Students with the aspiration to become Hunters, whose duty is to keep the peace within the world, strive to attend Beacon. In order to be accepted into Beacon, students must go to special schools in order to be trained in combat (like Signal Academy) or be invited to the school after showing exceptional skill (like Ruby Rose). There may be other ways to get in, as Jaune Arc shows almost no skill in combat at all.

Once being accepted into Beacon, new students have to go through an initiation, where they will be placed into teams after its completion. So far the only known teams are Team RWBY, Team JNPR and Team CRDL. There will be other teams besides RWBY, JNPR and CRDL at this school, but they are unknown at this time.

The curriculum also appears to be rigorous and dangerous, as there is the possibility of death even during initiation.

All students are required to wear a uniforms. The males wear black colored suits with a blue vest and white shirt and red tie. The females wear long stockings, which are an optional component,  a red plaid skirt, and a brown jacket with a tan vest and white shirt. Students are given the freedom to customize their attire, as Ruby also wears her hood with her uniform. Wearing the uniform is also appears to be not strictly enforced, as one student in a lecture did not have his on, and was not reprimanded.

Location
Beacon lies along the East edge of Vale, and has a wide river that runs through part of it. Airships are used to transport new students to the academy. A port is seen at the bottom of the cliffs next to Beacon Academy, implying that you could also arrive by boat, from Vale. Beacon's boundaries appear to reach rather far, and includes a rather large forest and mountain terrain.

Main Avenue
After arrival, new Cadet Huntsmen and Huntresses are deposited on a long, wide avenue leading up to what appears to be the main academy buildings and their large, impressive main doorway. The avenue is marked with trees and flag-draped light-poles. Beyond the doorway is what appears to be a large, open-air amphitheater. Within this is a raised platform upon which a speaker can address those standing below. This amphitheater can also serve as a fighting arena, where the audience would stay on stands at the sides.

Beacon Tower
The most prominent part of the academy buildings is a large tower, apparently the same one seen in the opening narration of the first episode. This is surmounted by what appears to be some kind of signal light, possibly the beacon which the institution is named after.

Academy Gardens
The academy is also shown to have large gardens, apparently at the rear of the buildings, including a large pond surrounded by a path, where students are free to wander as they please.

Beacon Academy Statue
The campus for Beacon Academy also includes a large statue featuring two figures, one a male and the other a younger female, standing on a rock outcropping. They are both dressed in a kind of robe with hoods over their heads. The male has a sword in his right hand and he is raising it up in a seemingly triumphant gesture. The younger female has a double-edged battle axe in her left hand. She is looking off to the side at something on the horizon. Below the two figures is a Beowolf looking in the same direction as the male with an arm in the air.

Inside the Academy
There is a grand assembly area where Ozpin addresses all the new students and a ballroom that doubles as a living area that new students may sleep in until they are assigned proper quarters. A uni-sex locker room is also present, as well as a dining hall and washroom facilities.

Lecture Hall
The Beacon Academy has a lecture hall not unlike those found in universities. In Badge and Burden, we see a lecture hall with (apparently) antique drawings of the various known species of Grimm. This hall has sufficient space for practical demonstrations in front of the students' desks.

===Dorms=== All the dorms at Beacon appear to be co-ed dorms, with males and females sleeping in the same room. This is done to let all members of a team share the same living area. However the students note that they are cramped.

Emerald Forest
Beacon Academy uses the Emerald Forest as the location for its Initiation and is filled with dangerous wildlife.

Course Details
In The First Step, Ozpin stated that his new students will be in their selected teams for four years. This strongly suggests that this is the length of the education at the academy.

Practical exercises appear to be a significant part of the courses; of these some are held in the Emerald Forest.

Students also attend lectures, given by staff such as Peter Port, on various topics like the various monsters they may encounter, though these lectures also are inherently dangerous as students are often exposed to said monsters.

Known Teams

 * RWBY
 * JNPR
 * CRDL

Known Staff Members

 * Professor Ozpin: Headmaster
 * Glynda Goodwitch
 * Peter Port: Grimm Studies

Trivia

 * The organization shares a similar goal with the DWMA from Soul Eater, as both train fighters to combat threats to their world.
 * Coincidentally, Ruby is somewhat similar to the character Maka Albarn; both wield scythes and are teenage girls younger than most of their peers.
 * Beacon is described as a legendary academy in the summary of "The First Step." This coupled with the fact that many warriors come to train at this school strongly suggests that not only is Beacon well known, but it is one of the best, if not the best, combat schools in Vale or possibly even in all of Vytal.
 * Based on Weiss', Blake's, and Yang's ages, the usual admission age for Beacon Academy is 17. Ruby however was offered an early invitation.