Best Private High Schools in Washington
Washington's private high-school field is heavily concentrated in the Seattle and Eastside corridors, with a three-school Jesuit Catholic college-prep network anchoring Tacoma, Spokane, and Seattle. Lakeside School in Seattle (5-12, ~875 students, ~$260 million endowment) leads by a wide margin on most measured signals, including 31 Harvard / Princeton / MIT acceptances 2022-2025. Holy Names Academy on Capitol Hill (founded 1880, the oldest school in Washington) is the senior single-sex Catholic college-prep flagship for girls. The Bush School, University Prep, and Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences span middle and upper school as the secular co-ed indies on the Seattle side.
On the single quantitative college-outcome signal available for private secondaries — PolarisList's tracking of Harvard, Princeton, and MIT acceptances — the statewide field is sharply concentrated. Lakeside seniors received 31 HPM acceptances across the 2022-2025 admissions cycles, an average of roughly eight a year out of a class of about a hundred and ten and more than five times the next-closest private. Holy Names is second at six over the same four-year window. Eastside Catholic, Eastside Prep, The Northwest School, Bellarmine Prep, and Annie Wright each report between one and four placements; the rest of the private secondary field across the state shows zero.
Across the lake, The Overlake School (Redmond, founded 1967) and Eastside Preparatory School (Kirkland, NWAIS-accredited 2010) anchor the Eastside secular co-ed indies cohort. Eastside Catholic (Sammamish, 6-12, founded 1980) is the regional archdiocesan Catholic college-prep east of Lake Washington. The Northwest School (Seattle, First Hill 6-12) is the only Seattle-area private with a meaningful day-and-boarding program.
Tacoma carries an unusually deep college-prep cohort for a mid-size American city. Bellarmine Preparatory (1928, the first Jesuit school in the United States to go co-ed in 1974) is the senior Catholic 9-12 in the South Sound. Annie Wright Schools (1884) is the only IB Continuum school in Washington and operates a coordinate single-sex upper-school model with day-and-boarding programs for both. Charles Wright Academy on a 107-acre University Place campus traces its founding to families displaced from Annie Wright after the 1949 Tacoma earthquake.
Gonzaga Preparatory in Spokane (founded 1887, the oldest school in Spokane) is the dominant Catholic college-prep pipeline in the Inland Northwest, with a 1922-1969 history as a formal department of Gonzaga University. Saint George's School in Spokane became the city's first International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme school in 2014. In Seattle, Seattle Preparatory School (founded 1891 in Capitol Hill, co-ed since 1975) is the third Jesuit school in the WA network and the city's oldest Catholic high school; the archdiocesan Catholic co-ed and single-sex 9-12s — Bishop Blanchet and O'Dea — round out the Seattle Catholic field.
Ranked schools
- 001LAKESIDE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING31 HPM
- 002HOLY NAMES ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING6 HPM
- 003EASTSIDE CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING4 HPM
- 004EASTSIDE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING3 HPM
- 005BELLARMINE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE2 HPM
- 006GONZAGA PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SPOKANE2 HPM
- 007THE OVERLAKE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING2 HPM
- 008SEATTLE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1 HPM
- 009THE BEAR CREEK SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1 HPM
- 010ANNIE WRIGHT SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE1 HPM
- 011CHARLES WRIGHT ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE1 HPM
- 012THE NORTHWEST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1 HPM
- 013ENLIGHTIUM ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SPOKANE—
- 014LYNDEN CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS: ADMINISTRATION(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · WHATCOM—
- 015KING'S SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 016SEATTLE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 017BELLEVUE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 018KINGS WAY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · CLARK—
- 019BISHOP BLANCHET HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 020JOHN F KENNEDY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 021THE BUSH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 022UNIVERSITY PREP(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 023LIFE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 024NORTHWEST CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SPOKANE—
- 025SEATTLE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
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