Best Private Schools in Seattle + Eastside
Seattle and the Eastside form the deepest private-school market in the state, with the two sides operating as distinct but overlapping cohorts. Seattle's private market is older — Holy Names Academy was founded on Capitol Hill in 1880, Lakeside on Haller Lake in 1919, Bush in Madison Valley in 1924, and Bishop Blanchet in Greenwood in 1954 — and shaped by the city's neighborhood geography. The Eastside's market is mostly post-Microsoft, with Eastside Catholic (Sammamish, 1980), The Overlake School (Redmond, 1967, the senior secular K-12 indie), and Eastside Preparatory (Kirkland, NWAIS-accredited 2010) leading a younger field built around the technology workforce.
The flagship secular independents — Lakeside, Bush, University Prep, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences on the Seattle side; Overlake and Eastside Preparatory on the Eastside — are the schools most often named in cross-shore parent comparisons. SAAS and Eastside Prep are typically discussed as the secular co-ed analogs to University Prep across the lake. The Catholic field has three distinct components: Holy Names Academy (the single-sex Capitol Hill flagship); Seattle Preparatory School (the Jesuit co-ed in Capitol Hill, founded 1891, the city's oldest Catholic high school); and the archdiocesan co-ed and single-sex high schools (Bishop Blanchet, O'Dea, Eastside Catholic). The K-8 elites — Seattle Country Day School, The Evergreen School, University Child Development School, Bertschi, plus Open Window in Bellevue — operate one tier below the senior independents in published coverage but a tier above the parish K-8s that fill out the broader market.
Cross-shore, the HPM placement signal concentrates almost entirely in Lakeside. PolarisList tracks 31 Harvard, Princeton, and MIT acceptances from Lakeside across the 2022-2025 admissions cycles — roughly eight a year out of a senior class of about a hundred and ten, and more than five times the next-closest private (Holy Names at six over the same window). On the Eastside private side, Eastside Catholic reports four placements over four years, Eastside Prep three, and Bear Creek one. The Eastside's HPM concentration sits primarily on the public side, in the Bellevue School District's gifted hub at Interlake (13 placements 2022-2025, the second-highest count of any school in the state).
The A-tier cohort is broad and crosses the lake. Bear Creek (Redmond, classical-Christian K-12, National Blue Ribbon), King's School (Shoreline, the state's largest single-campus Christian K-12), and Bellevue Christian (with its Three Points campus in Medina and the Clyde Hill secondary) anchor the Christian K-12 systems. Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart (Bellevue, all-girls 5-12) is the only Sacred Heart Network school in the Pacific Northwest. The parish K-8 cohort (St Joseph in Capitol Hill, Villa Academy, St John in Greenlake, Sacred Heart in Clyde Hill, Holy Rosary in West Seattle, French American School of Puget Sound on Mercer Island) fills in the middle tier.
The B tier covers smaller parish and specialty schools — Catholic parish K-8s with category presence but smaller scale (St Luke, Our Lady of Fatima, St Anne, St Catherine, St George), the Jewish day-school pipeline (Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle in Bellevue, Northwest Yeshiva High School on Mercer Island), and the Hamlin Robinson School (Seattle, the specialized 1-8 day school for students with dyslexia).
S Tier · 12 schools
- 001LAKESIDE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING875 students
- 002HOLY NAMES ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING571 students
- 003EASTSIDE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING536 students
- 004THE OVERLAKE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING557 students
- 005SEATTLE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1,170 students
- 006THE BUSH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING715 students
- 007UNIVERSITY PREP(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING662 students
- 008SEATTLE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING411 students
- 009THE EVERGREEN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING444 students
- 010OPEN WINDOW SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING359 students
- 011UNIVERSITY CHILD DEVELOPMENT SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING271 students
- 012BERTSCHI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING226 students
A Tier · 26 schools
- 013EASTSIDE CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING880 students
- 014THE BEAR CREEK SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING673 students
- 015THE NORTHWEST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING429 students
- 016SEATTLE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING750 students
- 017KING'S SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1,209 students
- 018BISHOP BLANCHET HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING922 students
- 019BELLEVUE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING918 students
- 020ST JOSEPH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING575 students
- 021BELLEVUE CHILDREN'S ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING541 students
- 022ST JOHN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING469 students
- 023HOLY ROSARY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING465 students
- 024O'DEA HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING461 students
- 025SACRED HEART SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING408 students
- 026CHESTNUT HILL ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING329 students
- 027FRENCH AMERICAN SCHOOL OF PUGET SOUND(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING312 students
- 028VILLA ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING298 students
- 029FOREST RIDGE SCHOOL OF THE SACRED HEART(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING245 students
- 030SEATTLE WALDORF SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING193 students
- 031THREE POINTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING269 students
- 032SAINT THOMAS SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING250 students
- 033EPIPHANY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING232 students
- 034BASIS INDEPENDENT BELLEVUE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING231 students
- 035ETON SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING227 students
- 036THE MERIDIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING174 students
- 037FRENCH IMMERSION SCHOOL OF WASHINGTON(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING149 students
- 038SPRUCE ST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING108 students
B Tier · 22 schools
- 039HAMLIN ROBINSON SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING389 students
- 040ST LUKE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING367 students
- 041PROVIDENCE CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING350 students
- 042WOODINVILLE MONTESSORI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING312 students
- 043EASTSIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING239 students
- 044UNITED SEATTLE&BELLEVUE KOREAN SCH BELLEVUE CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING345 students
- 045TZU CHI ACADEMY SEATTLE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING282 students
- 046WILLOWS PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING271 students
- 047HOLY FAMILY PARISH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING260 students
- 048HERITAGE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING253 students
- 049OUR LADY OF FATIMA SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING250 students
- 050ST GEORGE PARISH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING240 students
- 051ST ANNE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING228 students
- 052ST CATHERINE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING227 students
- 053ST MONICA SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING222 students
- 054RENTON PREP CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING220 students
- 055ST BRENDAN'S CATHOLIC CHURCH(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING217 students
- 056ST THERESE CATHOLIC ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING198 students
- 057OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING181 students
- 058AMAZING GRACE RENTON PREP CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING165 students
- 059JEWISH DAY SCHOOL OF METROPOLITAN SEATTLE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING77 students
- 060NORTHWEST YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING57 students
All rankings · Live map