Best Private Schools in Washington
Washington's private-school sector is small relative to the state's population and concentrated heavily in the Seattle and Eastside metro. Roughly 5 to 6 percent of WA K-12 students attend private schools — among the lowest private-school enrollment shares of any state — but the top of the field is unusually strong, anchored by a small group of long-established secular and religious independents that consistently place graduates at the most selective American universities. Eight of the top ten schools on this list operate within the Seattle metropolitan footprint; the other two are in Tacoma and Spokane.
Lakeside School in Seattle, founded 1919, sits at the apex by virtually any measure: enrollment scale (~875 students), endowment (~$260 million in 2024, among the largest of any independent secondary school in the country), and college-placement track record (31 Harvard / Princeton / MIT acceptances 2022-2025, highest in the state by a wide margin). Holy Names Academy on Capitol Hill, founded 1880 by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, is the oldest continuously operating school in Washington and the state's leading single-sex Catholic college-preparatory for girls. Eastside Catholic in Sammamish (1980) is the largest co-ed Catholic college-prep east of Lake Washington. Eastside Preparatory in Kirkland was founded in 2002 by parents and educators seeking more independent-school choice on the Eastside; it received NWAIS accreditation in 2010, making it one of the youngest fully accredited NWAIS schools in the state.
On college placement at the most selective end, the statewide picture is sharply concentrated. PolarisList tracks 31 Harvard, Princeton, and MIT acceptances from Lakeside seniors across the 2022-2025 admissions cycles — roughly eight a year out of a graduating class of about a hundred and ten, the highest count of any school in Washington and more than five times the next-closest private. Holy Names Academy is second statewide at six placements over the same four-year window. Eastside Catholic, Eastside Preparatory, The Northwest School, Bellarmine Prep, and Annie Wright Schools each report between one and four. Across the rest of the state's private secondary field, the count is zero.
Bellarmine Preparatory in Tacoma, founded 1928 by the Society of Jesus, became in 1974 the first Jesuit school in the United States to go co-ed when St. Leo High School and Aquinas Academy merged into it. Gonzaga Preparatory in Spokane, founded 1887 in the basement of Gonzaga University's administration building, is the oldest school in Spokane and was the fourth all-boys Jesuit high school in the country to admit women, in 1975. Seattle Preparatory School, founded 1891 by the Jesuits in Capitol Hill and co-ed since 1975, is the city's oldest Catholic high school and the third school in the WA Jesuit network. The statewide top tier also includes The Overlake School (Redmond, 1967, the senior secular K-12 indie on the Eastside), The Bear Creek School (Redmond, 1988, classical-Christian K-12, National Blue Ribbon), and the two Tacoma Episcopal independents — Annie Wright Schools (1884, the only IB Continuum school in WA) and Charles Wright Academy (1957, on a 107-acre University Place campus).
Single-sex secondary education in Washington is concentrated almost entirely in the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle — Holy Names for girls, O'Dea for boys, Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart on the Eastside for girls — with very few secular single-sex options. Annie Wright Schools in Tacoma operates a coordinate model with separate Upper School for Girls and Upper School for Boys on the same campus, the only school in the state running that structure.
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—
- 018NORTHSHORE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 019KINGS WAY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · CLARK—
- 020BELLEVUE CHILDREN'S ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 021BISHOP BLANCHET HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 022JOHN F KENNEDY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 023THE BUSH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 024UNIVERSITY PREP(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 025LIFE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
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