Middlesex School

At a Glance

Middlesex School was founded in 1901 and sits on a 350-acre campus at 1400 Lowell Road in Concord, Massachusetts, roughly 25 miles from Boston and Logan Airport. The school reports 429 students, 70 percent boarding and 30 percent day, with 14 percent international students, 22 countries and 23 states represented.

Size is the defining feature. The school states that in most years it enrolls approximately 110 new students, broken down as 85 ninth graders, 20 tenth graders and 5 eleventh graders. Grade 9 is therefore the entry point that matters; later entry points exist but are narrow.

Academics

The average class has 12 students and the student-faculty ratio is 4 to 1. The curriculum includes more than 20 AP (Advanced Placement) courses, five languages including Chinese, and dozens of electives. The school names two signature programs: The Writer’s Workshop, and a four-course rotation in the fine arts that has students move across arts disciplines rather than settle into one.

Applying

Applications are due January 15, and decisions are posted to the Veracross portal on March 10. Applicants to grades 9 and 10 submit the SSAT (Secondary School Admission Test) or the ISEE (Independent School Entrance Exam); applicants to grade 11 may submit the SSAT, PSAT or SAT. International applicants also submit results from the TOEFL, Duolingo or IELTS Indicator exams, and the school publishes reference scores on its admission pages. Recommendations are required from current-year math and English teachers and from a school counselor or advisor. The application fee is $80 for domestic and international applicants alike. An interview is not required, though the school welcomes visits; international applicants whose first language is not English must schedule a preliminary interview through Veracross first. Middlesex does not publish an acceptance rate.

Cost and Financial Aid

Published 2026-27 tuition is $82,575 for boarding and $67,730 for day students, with the school noting that there are no additional fees beyond tuition and that books are a separate cost. Thirty-four percent of students receive aid, the school distributes over $8.5 million annually, and the average grant is $61,747. Need is assessed through Clarity, with new-family materials due January 15, the same day as the application.

For Families in Irvine

The school states that it provides financial aid to a small number of international students each year, limited in both number and amount. Plan on paying full tuition unless admission tells you otherwise.

The rest is the honest arithmetic of cross-country boarding. A ninth grader leaves home at about fourteen, supervised by dorm faculty rather than by parents, so guardianship, break travel and emergency contacts should be arranged before enrollment. Massachusetts runs three hours ahead of California, and interviews, open houses and parent programming follow Eastern time. Orange County to Boston is a transcontinental flight, and Thanksgiving, winter and spring break airfare belongs in the annual budget next to tuition. One practical advantage: the campus is about 25 miles from Logan Airport, which makes pickups and drop-offs simpler than at schools further inland.

EDUBUS is based in Irvine. We work on school selection, SSAT preparation, essays and interview coaching, scheduling backward from the January 15 deadline. See SSAT preparation and private school planning.