Boston schools

A Boston-area list often mixes three kinds of school: city and suburban independent day schools such as BB&N, Winsor, Commonwealth and Roxbury Latin; Boston Latin, the exam school; and schools such as Milton, Nobles, Belmont Hill and Dana Hall, where some students live on campus. Those are different admissions processes and different weeks.

Several schools start later than parents expect. Roxbury Latin, Nobles, Belmont Hill and Boston Latin begin at Grade 7, so a Grade 6 search there is empty. BB&N publishes approximate openings: about 8 at Kindergarten, about 20 at Grade 6 and about 45 at Grade 9. Commonwealth and Boston University Academy are high schools whose main door is Grade 9. The schools compared page has the full grid.

“Boarding” means different things here. Nobles and Belmont Hill run five-day programs where students go home for weekends; Milton has about half its Upper School boarding, and Dana Hall offers seven-day boarding for girls from Grade 9. If boarding is the point rather than a fix for a hard commute, read our boarding schools coverage too.

Then test the late bus. Milton and Dana Hall currently list 6 p.m. or later departures on some routes, Belmont Hill's leaves at 4:55, and Thayer's normal departure is 4 p.m. Treat those as clues to confirm for Fall 2027. Our admissions guide is a short overview of the process; the calendar and the list and commute guide carry the dates and route checks.