Boarding Schools  The Putney School

The Putney School www.putneyschool.org

Progressive schools value a diversity of thought and culture, as well as a commitment to equity and justice. At Putney we have a program which fosters personal initiative and adaptability, engaging all parts of a student’s development, not just the academic part. The culture embodies respect for the individual and the rewards of participation in a community. We aim, as our founder Mrs. Hinton said, “to make school life a more real, less sheltered, less self-centered venture, and to make the arts part of everyday life, and to teach stewardship of the land both by the way we live and in a curriculum designed for that purpose.”

We regard the curriculum as everything we do here, and therefore eschew the word ‘extra-curricular’. The four pillars of the school: vigorous academics, the work program, the arts, and physical activity, all combine and intertwine to create students who understand what it takes to get things done. One of the hallmarks of Putney is our transparency to our students and our willingness to engage them in the running of the school. We allow and often require our students to struggle with the real dilemmas of crafting a community in which rights and responsibilities balance. Much of a student’s life at Putney is experiential education, and they enjoy both independence and responsibility.

 Academics

The Putney School stands for a way of life. Putney is committed to developing each student’s full intellectual, artistic and physical potential. Putney students are encouraged to challenge themselves intellectually, to pursue rigorous learning for its own sake, to actively participate in and appreciate the arts, to contribute meaningfully to the work program that sustains the School community and the farm on which it is located, to engage in vigorous athletics, and to develop a social consciousness and world view that will provide the foundation for life-long moral and intellectual growth.

 Special Highlights

Special Programs. Project Week, Land Use, Farm Semester, Art Semester, Community Service, Assembly, Senior Exhibitions, Sunday Evening Meeting, Long Spring; Afternoon and Evening Activities: Drama, Arts, Crafts, Music, Dance, Skill-Building; Work Program: Dining Room and Kitchen Crews, Garden, Farm, Woods, Maple Sugaring, Maintenance Crews

 Top colleges attended by students

Bard College, Columbia University, College of the Atlantic, Dartmouth College, Hampshire College, Oberlin College, Reed College, Sarah Lawrence College, Smith College

 What the school looks for in students…

“We base our admission decisions on personal promise and demonstrated academic achievement.”