Boarding Schools  Oakwood Friends School

Oakwood Friends School www.oakwoodfriends.org

Oakwood Friends is New York State’s oldest co-educational boarding and day school. It is an independent, college preparatory school serving grades 6-12. Oakwood Friends puts this belief into practice by focusing on the individual learner, and cultivating a diversified community of students and staff in an atmosphere of mutual respect and enrichment.

Throughout campus, student voices fill the air. We foster an environment where students are encouraged to try without fear and learn without apprehension. In classrooms, the voices of primary texts from many cultures and eras mix with the voices of students interpreting those texts and forging new ideas. At athletic contests, many voices become one to support and lead one another.

 Academics

Oakwood’s rigorous college-preparatory curriculum emphasizes an active, engaged role for each member of the school community. Students pursue their subjects with a critical eye, examining relationships and exploring the value of information-based research, experimentation, and analysis. In other words, they learn to search for the complex nature of truth. A wide variety of electives further enriches the curriculum.

 Special Highlights

Arts. Oakwood Friends School offers a full range of programs in music, drama, and visual arts, all of them emphasizing the process of creation. Whether on stage, in the art studio, or behind the lens of a camera, students experience growth and a sense of accomplishment through self-expression.

Technology. Supported by an extensive fiber optic network, Oakwood’s 63-acre, 14-building campus enjoys full connectivity. Academic spaces are supported with networked computers in all classrooms. Collins Library houses a 24-unit upper school computer lab, while Crowley provides the middle school with a state of the art 11-unit computing center.

 Top colleges attended by students

Drexel University, Goucher College, New York University, Boston University, George Washington University, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, SUNY Purchase, University of California, Irvine, Vassar College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

 What the school looks for in students…

“We look for applicants who are academically strong, friendly, compassionate to their peers, eager to learn, and willing to try new things.”