Best Private Schools in Seattle
Seattle's independent-school world is the most established and stratified in the state, shaped by a hundred and forty-five years of philanthropic, religious, and progressive-pedagogy institution-building, and by the city's geography. The leading day schools cluster in three corridors: a north-end belt running from Wallingford up through Wedgwood and Haller Lake (Lakeside, University Prep, Bishop Blanchet); a Capitol Hill / First Hill cluster anchored by Holy Names Academy, Seattle Preparatory School, Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Northwest School; and a Madison Park / Madison Valley pocket around the Bush School. Boarding programs are essentially absent in Seattle proper.
Lakeside School, founded in 1919 and now serving roughly 875 students on its 26-acre Haller Lake campus, sits at the apex of the field. Its computer lab, leased in 1968 with proceeds from a Mothers' Club rummage sale, is the room where Bill Gates and Paul Allen first wrote code together; Gates has said publicly that there would have been no Microsoft without Lakeside. The school's endowment, reported at roughly $260 million in 2024, is among the largest of any independent secondary school in the country. Holy Names Academy, founded in 1880 by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary on Capitol Hill, is the oldest continually operating school in Washington and remains a single-sex Catholic college-prep for girls; its $36.4 million Foundation for the Future capital project, completed in 2020, added an underground 243-vehicle garage and the McAteer Lee Athletic Complex.
The Northwest School, founded in 1980 in the historic Summit School building on First Hill (a National Register landmark), is one of the few NWAIS schools nationally to operate a small day-and-boarding program inside an urban core, and it built its identity around interdisciplinary humanities and environmental-stewardship pedagogy. Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded 1983 in classrooms at Temple De Hirsch Sinai by founders who broke from the Northwest School, is now the largest secular independent in Seattle by enrollment with roughly 1,300 students. Bishop Blanchet, founded 1954 in Greenwood, was the Archdiocese of Seattle's first co-ed Catholic high school. The Bush School, founded by Helen Taylor Bush in 1924 as a progressive girls' kindergarten in her Madison Valley home, became fully co-ed in 1970 and remains the city's senior K-12 progressive school. King's Schools, on the 55-acre CRISTA Ministries campus in Shoreline, is the state's largest single-campus Christian K-12.
Where the field actually concentrates by measured outcome is in college placement at the most selective end. PolarisList tracks Harvard, Princeton, and MIT acceptances by school across the 2022-2025 admissions cycles; Lakeside seniors received 31 of them, an average of roughly eight a year out of a graduating class of about a hundred and ten — a placement rate at HPM that puts Lakeside in the company of the senior East Coast preps and that no other Washington school approaches. Holy Names is second statewide with six over the same four-year window. The Northwest School reports one. Among Seattle privates outside those three, the count is zero.
Seattle's private K-12 market has a clear top tier. Lakeside and Holy Names lead the secondary single-school cohort — Lakeside as the secular flagship, Holy Names as the senior Catholic college-prep 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 (Bush is the only K-12 of the three; UPrep and Seattle Academy run 6-12). At the K-8 end, Seattle Country Day, The Evergreen School, University Child Development School, and Bertschi anchor the named gifted and progressive elementaries that fill the rest of the S-tier picture.
A-tier covers the broader established cohort: The Northwest School (the smaller First Hill day-and-boarding 6-12), Seattle Preparatory School (the Jesuit Catholic co-ed 9-12 in Capitol Hill, founded 1891 and the city's oldest Catholic high school), the archdiocesan Catholic high schools (Bishop Blanchet and O'Dea), the larger Christian K-12 systems with Seattle-area campuses (King's School in Shoreline, Bellevue Christian's Clyde Hill secondary), the long-running Catholic and language-immersion parish K-8s (St Joseph, St John, Holy Rosary, Sacred Heart, Villa Academy, French American School of Puget Sound), and the smaller secular K-5 indies (Epiphany, Meridian, Spruce Street). B-tier covers the smaller parish elementaries with category presence but more limited scale, plus specialized schools like Hamlin Robinson (the dyslexia-focused 1-8 day school).
S Tier · 9 schools
- 001LAKESIDE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING875 students
- 002HOLY NAMES ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING571 students
- 003SEATTLE ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1,170 students
- 004THE BUSH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING715 students
- 005UNIVERSITY PREP(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING662 students
- 006SEATTLE COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING411 students
- 007THE EVERGREEN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING444 students
- 008UNIVERSITY CHILD DEVELOPMENT SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING271 students
- 009BERTSCHI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING226 students
A Tier · 18 schools
- 010THE NORTHWEST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING429 students
- 011SEATTLE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING750 students
- 012KING'S SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING1,209 students
- 013BISHOP BLANCHET HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING922 students
- 014BELLEVUE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING918 students
- 015ST JOSEPH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING575 students
- 016ST JOHN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING469 students
- 017HOLY ROSARY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING465 students
- 018O'DEA HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING461 students
- 019SACRED HEART SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING408 students
- 020FRENCH AMERICAN SCHOOL OF PUGET SOUND(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING312 students
- 021VILLA ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING298 students
- 022SEATTLE WALDORF SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING193 students
- 023THREE POINTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING269 students
- 024SAINT THOMAS SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING250 students
- 025EPIPHANY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING232 students
- 026THE MERIDIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING174 students
- 027SPRUCE ST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING108 students
B Tier · 14 schools
- 028HAMLIN ROBINSON SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING389 students
- 029ST LUKE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING367 students
- 030HERITAGE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING253 students
- 031OUR LADY OF FATIMA SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING250 students
- 032ST GEORGE PARISH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING240 students
- 033ST ANNE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING228 students
- 034ST CATHERINE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING227 students
- 035ST MONICA SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING222 students
- 036RENTON PREP CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING220 students
- 037ST BRENDAN'S CATHOLIC CHURCH(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING217 students
- 038ST THERESE CATHOLIC ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING198 students
- 039OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING181 students
- 040AMAZING GRACE RENTON PREP CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING165 students
- 041NORTHWEST YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING57 students
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