Woodberry Forest School

Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country. Woodberry's 1,200-acre campus is the largest boarding school campus near Washington, D.C. and one of the largest private school campuses in the country.

Woodberry is proud of its relationships with other top private schools through The Association of Boarding Schools and with other Virginia private schools through the Virginia Association of Independent Schools. As one of the nation's leading schools for boys, Woodberry is also a proud member of the International Boys School Coalition.

Woodberry's state-of-the-art campus stretches across 1,200 beautiful and historic acres in Central Virginia. From the athletic fields to the classroom to the dorm, everything is built with the school's all-boys, all-boarding structure in mind, creating spaces where boys form a deep brotherhood with peers who come from around the nation and the world.

Since the prep school’s founding in 1889, Woodberry Forest has sought to develop young men of intellectual thoroughness and principled integrity equipped with the capacity and eagerness to serve as leaders, learners, and citizens. Consistent with the historical founding of the school on Christian principles, we aspire to instill in every boy a deep sense of empathy, an enduring self-confidence buttressed by genuine humility, and an enthusiastic pursuit of lifelong learning marked by curiosity and adaptability. Above all, we aim for every boy to enjoy a meaningful life by nurturing his commitment to act upon moral beliefs and ethical values in service to others.

The purpose of the school is to develop in its students, under Christian principles, a high sense of honor and moral integrity, a deep respect for sound scholarship, a full acceptance of responsibility, a love of excellence, and a will toward personal sacrifice in service to others. It is likewise its mission, based on these ideals, to develop its students into leaders, to train its students toward a useful contribution to the democratic society in which they live, and to give them thorough preparation for the best colleges and universities consistent with their individual potentials.

The abiding concern of Woodberry Forest School is the personal growth of its students. To this end, the school attempts to provide a broad experience with balanced emphasis on the academic, artistic, physical, and spiritual development of its students. In so doing, the school believes that well-conceived challenges, together with support and encouragement, will instill self-confidence and a striving for continuing excellence throughout life. Woodberry Forest is committed to helping students become individuals whose sense of values and capacity to reason effectively will allow them to deal with important intellectual, ethical, and social problems and to lead rewarding private lives. In keeping with this objective, the faculty is more concerned with teaching students how to think than what to think.

As a community, the school fosters an atmosphere of civility and cooperation, urging its members to treat one another with the respect and consideration they hope to receive in return. The underpinning of that effort is the honor system, which is not so much a rigid code as it is a way of life that is fundamental to the decency of the Woodberry Forest community. The school seeks to maintain a secure and healthy environment for its students to go about the process of growing and learning, in the hope that every student will come to think of Woodberry Forest as a second home.

Woodberry Forest School was founded on land that originally belonged to General William Madison, brother of President James Madison, near Orange, Virginia. In 1889 Robert S. Walker brought a tutor to the farm to educate his sons. Soon boys from neighboring farms joined the six Walker boys in the classroom, and a school was born. Over the years the campus and curriculum have changed with the times, but the school's mission has remained constant: Woodberry Forest is an exceptional boarding school community for boys in grades nine through twelve that transforms good boys with potential and the will to succeed into honorable and respectful men of moral purpose.

The dorms and classroom buildings sit on a hilltop in the Virginia Piedmont, with views that stretch to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Down the hill are athletic facilities, a nine-hole Donald Ross golf course, and plenty of land for boys to explore, including miles of mountain biking traills and a three-mile stretch of the Rapidan River.

Above all, Woodberry is a community of trust, governed by the 120-year-old, student-run honor system. The spirit of trust, and the fact that all of the students and nearly all of the faculty live on campus, creates a place where every boy is known, challenged, and loved in a positive and caring culture. Everyone in our community wants each boy to be the best version of himself.

The Woodberry community extends far beyond the campus. When boys leave they lead successful careers that are significant and rewarding. They become members of a strong alumni community, bonded through the generations, that demonstrates an extraordinary love for and devotion to the prep school.

At Woodberry Forest School, boys prepare for their futures as leaders, learners, and citizens. Located in Virginia’s rolling hills, Woodberry is a boarding school where students develop a deep sense of empathy, an enduring self-confidence, genuine humility, and an interest in lifelong learning. Woodberry boys go on to enjoy lives of commitment and honor, marked by moral beliefs and ethical values in service to others.
Woodberry believes in developing all aspects of boys. So when classes end, the Woodberry experience is only beginning, providing boys with numerous outlets to develop, grow, and challenge themselves.

The challenging academic curriculum is supplemented by an athletic program that has enjoyed more than a century of sustained excellence and a fine arts program that exposes boys to collegiate-level facilities and opportunities. Boys work with their teachers and coaches to build a culture of shared experiences, both in the classroom and beyond it. These experiences help boys develop their passions as they build confidence, resilience, and independence.

All 400 students at this boys' boarding school live on campus, as do ninety-five percent of the faculty. A Woodberry education takes place both in the classroom and across all parts of the 1,200-acre campus, located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. This is a place where boys can explore existing passions and develop new ones, whether that’s fishing along the Rapidan River or working as an investment adviser to the school’s endowment.