Groton enrolls about 380 boys and girls from the eighth through twelfth grades, dubbed Forms II–VI in the British fashion. Its $475 million endowment enables the school to admit students on aneed-blind basis. Typically, 40–44% of students are onfinancial aid. Students with family incomes under $150,000 attend for free.
The design of St. John's Chapel (1900) reflects the school'slow church tendencies.[7]: 20 Its architect, ahigh churchman, proposed adding an ornatereredos like the one he built forSt. Paul's School, but Endicott Peabody vetoed it.[8][9][7]: 29
Peabody served as headmaster for fifty-six years. A proponent of "muscular Christianity," he instituted aSpartan educational system that included cold showers and dormitory cubicles instead of individual bedrooms.[10][11] He successfully attracted the children of wealthy families,[12]: 71 [13] whom he hoped to toughen up through this program of "corrective salutary deprivation."[10]
Under Peabody, Groton sought to inspire its students to serve the public good, rather than enter professional life.[12]: 72–73 In peacetime, many graduates were involved in public affairs,[14][12]: 321–28 but the alumni typically gravitated to business, finance, law, or similar professional positions.[15][12]: 318 In wartime, the school's ethos of public service played a more prominent role. 475 of Groton's 580 military-age alumni served inWorld War I; 24 died and another 36 were wounded, at a time when the graduating class contained roughly 27 students.[4]: 151, 162, 189–90 Roughly 700 alumni served inWorld War II, with 31 deaths.[16]: 42–43
Peabody also expected his students to "be ready for advanced courses at the universities."[12]: 72–73 He sought to improve the academic qualities of the student body, introducing competitive entrance examinations and a scholarship program in 1907.[17][18][12]: 99–100 (One such scholarship student,Henry Chauncey '23, went on to popularize theScholastic Aptitude Test with American universities.[19]) Since evenIvy League universities could not always be counted on for financial aid at the time, Peabody also helped certain students pay for college. Chauncey was able to transfer fromOhio State to Harvard after Peabody arranged for a Groton donor to subsidize the cost,[20] and Peabody gave the 1940 valedictorianJohn B. Goodenough a tutoring job to help make ends meet after the latter was admitted toYale.[21][22]
Peabody was succeeded by John Crocker '18, the Episcopal chaplain atPrinceton University.[23] Crocker's 25-year tenure overlapped with the dawn of theCivil Rights Movement. In September 1951, Groton accepted its firstAfrican-American student.[24][25] In April 1965, Crocker and his wife—accompanied by 85 Groton students—marched withMartin Luther King Jr. during a civil rights demonstration inBoston.[16]: 113–14 (Four years earlier, Southern authorities had arrested Crocker's son John Jr. '42 during theFreedom Rides, leading to the Supreme Court casePierson v. Ray.[26]) Crocker also significantly expanded the school's financial aid program; by his retirement in 1965 approximately 30% of Groton students were on scholarship.[16]: 124
After Crocker, Groton cycled through three brief Headmasterships: Bertrand Honea Jr. (1965–69), Paul Wright (1969–74), and Rowland Cox (1974–77).[27][28][29] These years were marked by disputes over how (if at all) to implementco-education at Groton. Honea proposed either merging with a girls' school or formalizing a sister-school relationship withConcord Academy, a well-regarded girls' school twenty miles away.[16]: 220, 253 [30] (Concord declined Groton's offer to help relocate the academy to the town of Groton, and mooted the issue by opening its doors to boys in 1971.[31][32]) Following Honea's departure, Wright successfully proposed an organic transition to co-education by expanding the student body from 225 to 300 students; this plan limited the number of boys that would be rejected under the new system.[33] After Wright reached Groton's mandatory retirement age, the school tapped Cox to implement the plan.[16]: 229–31 Groton welcomed its first female students in 1975.[33] Applications tripled,[34] and today, Groton's student body is evenly split between boys and girls.[33]
The new headmasters also relaxed some of the more Spartan aspects of Peabody's Groton in response to changing preferences within the American upper class, which increasingly favored private day schools over boarding schools.[35][36] They replaced the sleeping cubicles with proper bedrooms, added more holidays to the academic calendar, relaxed the dress code, authorized a school newspaper, and gave students more free time over the weekends to explore the town of Groton or their own personal interests.[37][16]: 143–45, 167–68, 202, 227–28 However, some traditions remain, such as the school's commitment to public service, its small community, and its attachment to the Episcopal Church.
Groton reached its modern form under William Polk '58 (1978–2003) and Richard Commons (2003–13), who significantly upgraded the campus' buildings and grounds and internationalized the admissions process; and the current Headmaster, the South AfricanTemba Maqubela (2013–present).[38][39][40][41] In recent years the school has focused on broadening affordability. In 2008, Groton,Andover, andExeter began offering free tuition to families with household incomes below a certain threshold, initially set at $75,000.[42][43] From 2014 to 2018, the school conducted a $74 million fundraising campaign that allowed it to begin admitting students on aneed-blind basis.[44][45]
In the spring of 1999, theMiddlesex County District Attorney began investigating the claims of three Groton seniors, who alleged that they, and other students, had been sexually abused by other students in dormitories in 1996 and 1997.[46][47] During the school's investigation of the matter, another student brought a similar complaint to the school's attention. In 2005, the school pleaded guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge of failing to report the latter student's sexual abuse complaint to the government and paid a $1,250 fine. The school issued an apology to the victims, and the civil suit stemming from the first student's complaint was settled out of court.[48][49] In the fall of 2006, as part of the settlement, the school published a full apology to the boy who first alleged the abuse in 1999.
Members of the Groton community continue to play a notable role in the secondary school community. At present, former Groton masters are the heads of school atCranbrook (Aimeclaire Roche, also president of the national Heads and Principals Association),[50][51]St. Paul's (Kathleen Giles),[52]Roxbury Latin (Sam Schaffer),[53]Dana Hall (Katherine Bradley),[54]Salisbury (William Webb),[55] andBrewster International (Craig Gemmell),[56] among others.[57]
The walls of the Schoolroom (the study hall) are covered with wooden tablets bearing the names of every graduate and every member ofPhi Beta Kappa.[58]
In 2024,Niche ranked Groton as America's top private high school.[59] However, a small school like Groton is particularly vulnerable to short-term fluctuations in theNiche ranking formula; in 2020 the school was ranked #33.[60] The school's small size also helps it record low admission rates. In 2016,Business Insider ranked Groton as the most selective boarding school in the United States.[61] In 2024, the website Private School Review repeated this ranking, although it did not say whether it confirmed this information with Groton.[62]
The Form of 2023's average combinedSAT score was 1490 and its average combinedACT score was 33.5.[63] The school's 4:1 student-teacher ratio[63] allows the school to offer a variety of courses and an individualized study program for seniors whose academic interests have gone beyond the regular curriculum.[64] Although not every academic department offersAdvanced Placement classes,[65][66] Groton students took 2,582 AP exams (approximately 6.5 per student) from 2018 to 2022 and passed 93% of them.[63]
Groton has historically served as a feeder school forHarvard College. From 1906 to 1932, 405 Groton students applied to Harvard and 402 were accepted.[67][4]: 132
There were at least three major reasons for this level of success. First, evenIvy League schools accepted most of their applicants until the second half of the twentieth century, when the government expanded the pool of students who could afford college by backingstudent loans (Higher Education Act of 1965) and providingG.I. Bill funding for veterans.[68][69][70] (Stanford, which accepted seven of every eight applicants in 1951, was rejecting four of every five by 1965.[71]) Second, Groton students often performed well on college entrance examinations. From 1906 to 1934, only six students received perfect scores on the English component of theCollege Boards (the predecessor to the SAT), and four were Groton alumni.[4]: 138 Third, even when Groton produced middling students, elite colleges were often willing to admit them anyway because of their parents'legacy status, wealth, or connections.[69][72][73] One especially rich Groton boy did so poorly in school that Endicott Peabody threatened to ban him from applying to Harvard.[74] Despite "appalling" scores on his entrance exams, Harvard admitted him anyway.[75] (In those days, a student did not actually have to pass his entrance exams to be admitted.[76])
In 1953,McGeorge Bundy '36 became thefaculty dean at Harvard, a role which gave him oversight of undergraduate admissions.[77] Although he became a Groton trustee in 1957,[16]: 238 he believed that the college entrance exams of the time were doing a poor job of identifying the most talented students, and concluded that "[t]he untrained boy of real brilliance is more valuable to [Harvard] than the dull boy who has been intensely trained."[78] In 1958, Bundy commissioned a report urging Harvard to diversify its student body and to give greater weight to raw academic talent in undergraduate admissions.[79] The share of prep school graduates at Harvard declined from 57% of the freshman class in 1941 to 32% in 1980.[78] These changes were not confined to Harvard. In 1960, Groton's 75th anniversary book accurately warned that prep school students were now "challenged ... by boys who come frompublic schools all over the country. As one [Yale] dean said to me, 'There has been a dramatic rise in the academic competence of Yale's students during the last few years. The best of the present are no better than the best of previous years; there are simply more of them.'"[80]
Groton has contributed to several other educational institutions.
In 1909, BishopCharles Henry Brent founded Baguio School (nowBrent International School Baguio) inBaguio, Philippines to educate the children of American colonial administrators, military personnel, missionaries, and businesspeople.[82][83] The school's first headmaster wasRemsen B. Ogilby, a former Groton teacher,[84] and Peabody lent the school Guy Ayrault, who became its first assistant headmaster.[85] Peabody's sonMalcolm '07 ran the school from 1911 to 1913.[86] The school sought to be a "determinedly American institution" in Southeast Asia until the Philippinesgained their independence in 1946.[87]
In 1926, Peabody foundedBrooks School inNorth Andover, Massachusetts. Groton was heavily oversubscribed, and the introduction of competitive examinations in 1907 had not meaningfully trimmed the waitlist.[88][89] Peabody did not want to increase the size of the school (which never exceeded 194 students during his tenure),[12]: 218 but also did not want to turn away too many parents.[90] Accordingly, he raised over $200,000 from Groton donors to build a new school,[12]: 307–11 which, like Groton, would be Episcopal and small enough to be familial.[91] Brooks sought to replicate Groton's emphasis on "stern Christian principles ... to train boys for life," but avoided the "character-building cold showers that had been a dreaded prebreakfast ritual at Groton."[92]
Groton currently supports Epiphany School, an academically intensive, tuition-free, lottery-admission Episcopal middle school for at-risk youth in the Boston area.[93] The school was founded by John Finley '88,[94] and Groton headmaster William Polk previously served on Epiphany's board.[95] Epiphany's academic year is 11 months long,[96] and the entire school relocates to Groton's campus in the summer.[97]
Groton's acceptance rate normally hovers around 12%.[98][61][99][100] Applications increased by 20% during theCOVID-19 pandemic, driving the acceptance rate down to 9% in 2021 and 8% in 2022.[101][102] Since then, the school has not published its acceptance rate.
Groton admits students on aneed-blind basis.[103] Before adopting need-blind admissions, full-pay applicants had an advantage in the application process; in 2012, the last year the school reported these statistics, 25–30% of full-pay applicants were admitted compared to 10–20% of financial aid applicants.[104] In 2018, the school announced that its admission rate was the same for both financial aid applicants and full-pay applicants.[105]
At the start of the 2018–19 school year, 18 of Groton's 96 incoming students were siblings of current students, and another 5 were children of school employees.[106]
At Groton, grades are known asForms, a term used in the United Kingdom and adopted byEndicott Peabody from his time atCheltenham College. In 1967, the last class of seventh graders (in school jargon, "First Formers") was admitted. In the 2022–23 school year, Groton enrolled 26 eighth graders ("Second Formers"), 81 freshmen ("Third Formers"), 87 sophomores ("Fourth Formers"), 92 juniors ("Fifth Formers"), and 91 seniors ("Sixth Formers"), for a total enrollment of 377 students.[107][108]
When Groton was founded in 1884, American boarding schools primarily catered toWhite Anglo-Saxon Protestants.St. Paul's accepted only students with "sound Episcopal credentials,"[111] and in 1885Andover admitted a Jew "[f]or the first time in twelve years."[112] Although Groton was open to Jews and non-Episcopalian Christians (for example, thePresbyterianTheodore Roosevelt and theJewishOtto Kahn both sent their sons to Groton[5][113][114]), the results were not substantially different.
In Groton's early years, most of its students came from wealthy families inNew York; some others came fromNew England.[115] A 1902 graduate recognized that "[n]inety-five percent of these boys came from what they considered the aristocracy of America. Their fathers belonged to theSomerset, theKnickerbocker, thePhiladelphia or theBaltimoreClubs. Among them was a goodly slice of the wealth of the nation."[13] Accordingly, schools like Groton considered it their mission "to make virtuous and brave those who, through the accident of birth, would someday exercise great power and influence."[10]
In the 2023–24 school year, 46% of Groton students identified as students of color, and 15% commuted to school from towns and cities inMassachusetts andNew Hampshire.[63] In addition, 7% of the student body were international students; they came from 25 countries.[63]
In the 2023–24 school year, Groton charged boarding students $59,995 and day students $46,720, plus other optional and mandatory fees.[103] Typically, 40–44% of students are onfinancial aid,[103][116][117][118] which covers, on average, $46,519 for boarding students and $32,371 for day students.[103] Since 2008, Groton has guaranteed free tuition for families with incomes under a certain threshold.[42] In 2024, the school raised the threshold from $80,000 to $150,000.[119] All financial aid is distributed as grants (i.e., nothing needs to be paid back); the school discontinued student loans in 2007.[120]
In 2014, Groton adopted a policy of restricting frontline tuition below that of its competitors. In 2022, it was the least expensive school among a sample of 40 peer boarding schools.[121] However, after financial aid is taken into consideration, other boarding schools may still offer competitive tuition packages once a student is admitted. For example, atLawrenceville, boarding tuition for 2023–24 was $76,080 (roughly $16,000 more than Groton), but the average aid grant for boarding students that year was around $60,000 (roughly $13,000 more than Groton).[122][123] Conversely, atRoxbury Latin, an all-boys day school with a similar frontline tuition policy, tuition for 2024–25 was $40,600 ($6,820 less than Groton) while the average aid grant was $27,348 ($8,811 less than Groton).[124]
Groton's financial endowment stands at $475 million.[63] In itsInternal Revenue Service filings for the 2021–22 school year, Groton reported total assets of $623.4 million, net assets of $537.3 million, investment holdings of $471.1 million, and cash holdings of $3.1 million. Groton also reported $37.8 million in program service expenses and $7.8 million in grants (primarilystudent financial aid).[125]
Groton does not participate in either theEight Schools Association or theTen Schools Admissions Organization.[130][131] Outside of athletics, Groton has collaborated with other independent schools on a primarilyad hoc basis. For example, after theKent State shootings, Groton,St. Paul's,Andover, andExeter held an emergency meeting to discuss how boarding schools should respond to growing student unrest.[132] Groton also worked with St. Paul's, Andover,Deerfield, andHotchkiss to create the Gateway to Prep Schools application portal.[133] The current headmaster,Temba Maqubela, sits on the board of the Heads and Principals Association.[51]
As an independent school, Groton is not dependent on public funding.[134] However, private schools are still eligible for government grants and indirect assistance. TheMassachusetts Development Finance Agency has issued tax-exempt bonds to finance renovations and/or new buildings at Groton,[135]Andover,[136]Deerfield,[137][138]St. Mark's,[139] andNobles.[140] The schools are still required to pay back the bonds on their own, but obtain tax benefits and more attractive repayment terms by working with the government.[135]
Groton School, as viewed from the top of St. John's Chapel. Hundred House is on the left and the Schoolhouse is on the right.
Groton has a 480-acre campus,[63] including academic buildings, dormitories, athletic fields, and undeveloped land for conservation.[141] The campus layout and landscape was designed byFrederick Law Olmsted, who also designedCentral Park inNew York City and many other educational institutions.[142] The school's core buildings are arranged around a (mostly) circular lawn, and "The Circle" is the primarymetonym for Groton's campus.[143] In 2018,Architectural Digest named Groton the most beautiful private high school campus inMassachusetts.[144]
The earliest surviving buildings on campus surround the Circle. Most of them were designed byPeabody & Stearns between 1884 and 1902.[145] These buildings include the Brooks House dormitory (1884), theFives Court (1890), the Hundred House dormitory (1891), the Schoolhouse (1899),[146][147] and the old gymnasium (1902), the latter of which is now the dining hall.[148] The present Chapel was consecrated in 1900.[149]
The school's athletic facilities include the Athletic Center (which contains two hockey rinks, three basketball courts, twelve squash courts, and a swimming pool), a crew boathouse on theNashua River, a track and field complex, and 18 tennis courts.[153][154][155][156]
The Dining Hall (formerly the gymnasium).[16]: 238, plate at pp. 110–111
A light-hearted, three-storytiled poster that students mounted on the Chapel in 2008.[157]
Most Upper Schoolers (10th–12th grades) live in Hundred House, which originally housed 100 students.[158][159]
Lower Schoolers (8th and 9th grades) and some Upper Schoolers live in Brooks House, Groton's original building.[4]: 19
St. John's Chapel opened in 1900. It was the gift of William Amory Gardner, one of the school's original teachers.[7]: 9 It was designed byHenry Vaughan, who also designedWashington National Cathedral and the New Chapel at St. Paul's School.[160] The Chapel replaced an earlier Vaughan design (now the Sacred Heart Church of Groton), which the school donated to the localCatholic community.[161][7]: 11
The Chapel's large size reflects the school's dual role as high school and parish church (cf.Christ Church, Oxford). Local landowners James and Prescott Lawrence donated the land for the campus on the understanding that the school would serve as the town's parish church, as there was no Episcopal church in Groton.[12]: 65–66 In 1950, the school's pastoral responsibilities were transferred to its satellite church inAyer.[162]
The Chapel'sAeolian-Skinner pipe organ (b. 1935) was designed byG. Donald Harrison, and was one of the first American organs designed to playBaroque music.[163][164] Over the next few decades, Harrison used the organ as a "laboratory" for the American Classic organ style.[163]
At Groton, students are required to attend five religious services a week: four ecumenical services on weekday mornings (comparable to morning assembly at a non-religious school) and one sectarian service of the student's choice on weekends.[165] According to Catholic commentatorWilliam F. Buckley Jr., when a prospective Catholic parent asked Groton whether it would encourage his son to attend Sunday Mass, the school replied, "No, he won't be encouraged to. He'll be required to."[166]
The school's Protestant liturgy and architecture reflect Endicott Peabody'slow church tendencies.[7]: 20 [167] To this day, the Chapel does not have anypews for students except in thechoir.[141] One scholar has suggested that the relative lack of ritual at Sunday services helped attract non-Episcopalian students to the school.[168] School chaplain Allison Read sits on the board of theNational Association of Episcopal Schools.[169]
The school's continued adherence to religious services on weekends has made it somewhat of an anomaly among Eastern boarding schools. In the 1990s, the aforementioned Buckley surveyed twelve American boarding schools and reported that Groton,Kent, andSt. George's were the only schools in the study that required students to attend a sectarian religious service on the weekend.[170] Since then, Kent has dropped its requirement, and St. George's moved its mandatory service to Thursdays.[171][172] However, students have found ways to accommodate their own preferences. In 2018, a student wrote in the school newspaper that the Buddhist service (which allows students to use smartphones) has become a popular "catch-all for non-religious students."[173]
Groton adopted its current motto,cui servire est regnare, in 1902.[174] Its proper English translation has been debated over the years. The Anglican Communion still usesThomas Cranmer's translation "in whose [God's] service is perfect freedom" from the original AnglicanBook of Common Prayer.[175][176][177] However, other sources, including the Catholic Church (Lumen gentium), have used the more straightforward translation "to serve [God] is to reign."[178][179] The school acknowledges the validity of both translations.[180]
The Groton girls' tennis team won the ISL championship in 2023 and 2024.[202] The Groton boys' tennis team won the ISL championship in 2018 and 2022.[203] Both the Groton girls' and boys' squash teams won the 2020 U.S. high school team division three national championship.[204][205]
Groton's sports rival isSt. Mark's School. The two schools began playing in 1886 and contest thefifth-oldest high school football rivalry in the United States.[206] The rivalry began when St. Mark's rejected Endicott Peabody for its vacant headmaster job on the basis that the school bylaws required the headmaster to be an Episcopal priest and Peabody had not yet been ordained, only to turn around and hire a different layperson for the position.[12]: 63–65 It took on a friendlier tone when St. Mark's hired Peabody's deputyWilliam Greenough Thayer as its new headmaster.[4]: 104
Groton's crews have rowed againstNoble and Greenough School since 1922.[207][208] This rivalry developed because historically, Groton and St. Mark's only played each other in football, baseball, and fives,[209] although the schools now play in all sports.
Groton andSt. Paul's School play each other in all sports and compete for a trophy.[210] Groton also plays its neighborLawrence Academy in various sports, but because the ISL is split into different divisions for football and hockey, matchups are less frequent.[211][212]
Groton was a minor filming location forAlexander Payne's 2023 filmThe Holdovers, standing in for the fictional Barton Academy.[225] The production team shot footage in the chapel (although most of the chapel scenes were shot atNorthfield Mount Hermon) and outside Groton's boathouse on the Nashua River.[226] As shown in the film, the west wall of the chapel has a large stained-glass window dedicated to the Groton alumni who died inWorld War I.[227]
InWendy Wasserstein's playThird, a college professor is assigned to teach a Groton alumnus who, despite hisWASPy name, attends the college on scholarship.[229][230]
^Karabel, Jerome (2006).The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (Rev. ed.). New York:Mariner Books. p. 26.
^abcdefAshburn, Frank D. (1934).Fifty Years On: Groton School 1884–1934. New York: Sign of the Gosden Head.
^abBiddle, George (1960). "As I Remember Groton School".Views from the Circle: Seventy-Five Years of Groton School. Groton School. p. 126.
^Schlesinger, Arthur Meier (Jr.) (2000).A Life in the Twentieth Century: vol. 1. New York:Houghton Mifflin. p. 91 (a Phillips Exeter graduate corroborating this view).
^Karabel, p. 33 (quoting an alumnus who quipped that most Groton alumni wanted to make enough money "to send their sons to Groton").
^abcdefghNichols, Acosta (1976).Forty Years More: A History of Groton School 1934-1974. Groton School.
^Karabel, p. 22 ("[T]he [entrance exams] were not especially demanding, and a young man with modest intelligence from a feeder school like Groton could usually pass them with ease. If he did not, however, he could take them over and over again to obtain the requisite number of passes. Even the unfortunate applicant who failed to pass exams in enough subjects could still be admitted with 'conditions.'").
^Goodenough, Erwin Ramsdell (1960). "A Yale Professor and Groton Parent Looks at the School".Views from the Circle: Seventy-Five Years of Groton School. Groton School. p. 342.
^Kolowrat, Ernest (1992).Hotchkiss: A Chronicle of an American School. Hotchkiss School. p. 73.
^Allis, Jr., Frederick S. (1979).Youth from Every Quarter: A Bicentennial History of Phillips Academy, Andover. Hanover, NH:University Press of New England. p. 288.
^Heckscher, August (1980).St. Paul's: The Life of a New England School (1st ed.). New York:Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 383 (note 37) (contrasting Groton with St. Paul's, which traditionally focused on educating Bostonians).
^Buckley, pp. 290–300 (the schools in the study were Brooks, Choate, Deerfield, Exeter, Groton, Hotchkiss, Kent, Lawrenceville, Milton, St. George's, St. Paul's, and Taft).
^Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1934).Tender is the Night. Charles Scribner's Sons – viaProject Gutenberg.From above and behind the porter floated down a weary Groton voice.
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![Most Upper Schoolers (10th–12th grades) live in Hundred House, which originally housed 100 students.[158][159]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aHundred_House%2c_Groton_School.jpg)
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