St. Mark's School

St. Mark’s School is a coeducational, Episcopal, preparatory school, situated on 250 acres in Southborough, Massachusetts, 25 miles from Boston. Founded in 1865. St. Mark's is one of the oldest private boarding schools in New England and is a member of the Independent School League in competitive athletics. The school's 65 teachers lead 362 boarding and day students through a rigorous curriculum and a full program of co-curricular activities. Class size averages 12, with a student-faculty ratio of 5:1. Each department offers honors and advanced courses.

The driving force behind St. Mark’s continued success is its outstanding faculty, a diverse group of skilled and committed men and women who appropriately challenge and support students. On the one hand, our teachers hold students to high standards both inside and outside the classroom. At the same time, these talented educators use the best creative and sensitive strategies to help students reach those high standards. We are blessed as well with an outstanding group of students, committed to learning, eager to engage others, possessing a broad range of talents, and drawn from around the country and around the world. Supporting both faculty and students is a talented caring staff.

Much of life at St. Mark’s takes place under one roof, in our Main Building. That distinctive feature — combined with our small seminar-style classes, a student body of 360, and the variety of connections students and faculty make in the classroom, on the athletic field, on the stage, and in the dormitory — creates an extraordinary sense of community, which visitors to our campus comment upon again and again. We talk together about values at St. Mark’s and we explore spiritual questions. We take ourselves seriously, but we also have a lot of fun.

St. Mark's School educates young people for lives of leadership and service. Founded in 1865 as an intentionally small residential community, the School challenges its students to develop their particular analytic and creative capabilities by both inspiring their academic and spiritual curiosity and kindling their passion for discovery. We value cooperation over self-interest, and we encourage each person to explore his or her place in the larger world beyond our campus.

St. Mark’s School seeks to reflect the increasingly diverse world in which our students presently live and will live in the future. We intend to provide our students with a superior education in a community of students, parents, faculty, and staff that represents a variety of racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds. We strive to ensure respect for all regardless of sex, gender, gender identity, race, religion, sexual orientation, ability, family structure or economic background.

Students will gain the necessary skills to be successful in a collegiate setting. Our younger students begin with basic skills and move on to higher order skills development as they advance through the curriculum. They enhance their ability to master developmentally appropriate skill sets such as critical/analytical thinking, logical argumentation, effective writing, and close observation. Students are exposed to a foundational core curriculum designed to sharpen skills and habits of mind upon which to build their secondary school and college careers.

Our students are encouraged to discover the world beyond Southborough whether locally or abroad. Teachers explore global perspectives within our curriculum and regularly engage our students beyond the classroom on local day trips or by taking students to countries abroad.

St. Mark's School recognizes that a global education is a critical component of a 21st century education. Therefore, the goal of the Global Citizenship Initiative, through both curricular and extracurricular offerings, is to help our students see and appreciate the distinctive features and the beauty that exist in the variety of cultures of the world, to appreciate the human universals that make all people more similar than different, and to inspire our students to become global citizens.