Concord Academy

Concord Academy is a boarding and day high school for grades 9 through 12 on Main Street in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1922 as a school for girls and became coeducational in 1971. The 2026-27 school profile reports 431 students and 68 faculty members, with 40 percent boarding, 60 percent day students and 14 percent international students. The campus covers 39 acres, 18 miles from downtown Boston, and the commuter rail station is a few blocks away, about 30 minutes from the city. The school describes its boarding and day communities as equal parts, and day students often stay for dinner and weekend activities. Boarders live in six historic houses along Main Street, which the school calls houses rather than dorms; each holds 22 to 32 students from all grades, and 30 house faculty serve the residential program. At the center of campus, the Elizabeth B. Hall Chapel is a secular meeting house where most days begin with a chapel talk by a senior. The head of school is Henry D. Fairfax.

Concord Academy removed AP (Advanced Placement) courses from its curriculum in 2005, and the school profile states that many upper-level courses are designed to meet or exceed AP standards; the school works with students who want to sit AP exams, and juniors are expected to take the AP Literature exam. There is no class rank and there are no academic prizes, and diplomas are awarded in random order. The program catalog lists more than 200 courses, the average class size is 12, the student-teacher ratio is 6:1, and every student meets one-on-one with an advisor each week. First-semester ninth-grade courses are graded pass or no credit, and only courses taken at CA after ninth grade count toward the GPA. Graduation requires four years of English, two and a half years each of history and science, math through Geometry 2 and one course beyond Algebra 2, a third-level course in French, German, Latin, Mandarin or Spanish, and 10 credits in the performing and visual arts. Students in grades 9 and 10 take part in athletics, dance, theater or community service in all three seasons, and juniors and seniors in two. Seniors may petition to spend the spring semester on a self-designed senior project.

The school profile lists first-year matriculation for 2022 through 2026: Tufts University (22), Brown University (18), Washington University in St. Louis (16), Bowdoin College and Haverford College (14 each), Yale University and Columbia University (11 each), and Harvard University (9). Among California colleges, Stanford University and UCLA enrolled five each and USC three. For the class of 2026, graduates who submitted SAT scores to their colleges averaged 755 in reading and writing and 756 in math (50 testers), and ACT submitters averaged 34 (17 testers); the class had 12 National Merit semifinalists, a program that selects students by their junior-year PSAT. The average graduating class is 108 students.

The Concord Academy application starts in Finalsite, the school’s online admissions system. Whether a family applies through Finalsite, the Gateway to Prep Schools application or the Standard Application Online (SAO), it must create a Finalsite account and submit the inquiry form there, and that account is also used to schedule the interview, register for the Open House and receive the decision; the student and parent forms are completed on one platform only. Recommendations come from a guidance counselor or another school official, the current English teacher and the current math teacher, along with current-year grades and the prior year’s transcript. Every applicant submits an official SSAT (Secondary School Admission Test) or ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam) score report from a test taken in or after June 2026; tests taken after January 15, 2027 cannot be considered. Applicants whose first language is not English also submit the TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo English Test (TOEFL code 2255), and those who have attended an English-speaking U.S. school for the past three years can request a waiver by email. Athletic, visual art and performing art supplements are optional, go through SlideRoom, and are guaranteed review only if received before January 4, 2027; the school notes that most applicants do not submit them.

The interview is a one-on-one conversation between the applicant and an interviewer, followed by time for parents, and a campus tour and interview take one and a half to two hours; applicants who cannot travel can interview on Zoom. The school says it is currently scheduling interviews through the end of October, and families traveling from outside Massachusetts who need a later date can email the Admissions Office. For the 2026-27 season, the application opened August 17, all materials are due January 15, decisions are returned March 10, and admitted students reply by April 10. The Open House is the morning of October 17, 2026, and in California an admissions officer attends the Harbor Day and Pegasus School Fair at Harbor Day School on the evening of October 15. The school does not publish an application fee, an acceptance rate or the number of places by grade, and does not say whether it admits PG (post-graduate) students.

Concord Academy publishes 2026-27 tuition of $84,410 for boarding students and $67,610 for day students, with the enrollment deposit credited toward tuition; books, studio fees and other expenses typically add about $1,100. The school commits to meeting 100 percent of a student’s computed financial need with grants only, offers no loans, and awards no academic, artistic or athletic merit scholarships. The 2026-27 aid budget is $6.7 million, 22 percent of tuition revenue, supporting about 100 students, roughly 23 percent of the student body, with grants from $7,400 to full tuition; the average grant is $74,907 for boarders and $47,271 for day students. By household income, the school reports 35 families earning $0 to $99,999 with an average award of $75,062, 31 families at $100,000 to $199,999 averaging $67,551, 22 families at $200,000 to $299,999 averaging $52,608, and 12 families at $300,000 or more averaging $40,761; family size, sibling tuitions, assets and home equity are also considered.

Families apply for aid through Clarity, and all parents must complete the application by January 15; award letters arrive with the admission decision on March 10, and Clarity applies fee waivers automatically for families who meet income guidelines. Aid is available only to U.S. citizens or permanent residents when all parents file U.S. income tax returns. Because the school has no budget for returning families who were not previously funded, families who expect to need aid at any point should apply when they apply for admission.

Concord Academy accepts SSAT or ISEE scores only from tests taken from June 2026 through January 15, 2027, so an Irvine student should plan testing between the summer after grade 7 and December of grade 8 and book a seat about two months ahead. Interview slots are currently open through the end of October, so a family flying east should combine the tour and interview into one fall trip; otherwise, book a Zoom interview, and email the Admissions Office if a later date is needed. On October 15 an admissions officer attends a school fair at Harbor Day School, which gives Orange County families a chance to meet the school in person. Massachusetts is three hours ahead of California and about 2,570 miles from Irvine in a straight line, which means several cross-country flights a year. Six in ten students are day students, the Student Life Office and a student Entertainment Committee plan weekends for boarders, and new boarders can join the CARE program to be paired with a local host family, so talk through this mixed boarding and day rhythm as a family before applying. EDUBUS is based in Irvine and works on school selection, SSAT preparation and high school planning around this school’s published dates.