Castilleja School: a powerful girls’ model inside a demanding family equation

The girls-school model

Girls at the center of the day

Castilleja places girls at the center of classes, advising, leadership, athletics, and school traditions. The school frames the model as the presence of girls, not merely the absence of boys.

Admission considers applicants who align with the mission and identify as girls. A student who later transitions away from identifying as a girl may remain and receive community support.

The mission centers confident thinking, compassionate leadership, purpose, and five values: conscience, courtesy, character, courage, and charity. The 2025–26 profile reports 75% of students identifying as students of color.

DEIJB programming includes antiracism work, affinity groups, student leadership, and belonging.

The practical question on a visit is not whether girls’ schools work in general, but whether a student feels more expansive here.

Academics and pace

From sixth-grade building projects to Advanced Topics

Sixth graders begin with interdisciplinary math-science building and historical inquiry. Middle School pairs perspective, play, and purpose with inquiry, projects, languages, wellness, arts, fitness, and solid academic foundations.

Upper School—235 students in the 2025–26 profile, with an average class size of 14—uses faculty-designed Advanced Topics courses instead of a traditional AP curriculum. AT courses are the most rigorous on campus and generally serve juniors and seniors, though students in aligned courses may still sit for selected AP exams.

Upper School runs on semesters and does not rank students. Only AT courses receive extra GPA weight; honors courses do not, and an unweighted GPA below 2.5 triggers academic probation.

The profile strongly recommends capping each semester at five core academic courses and four ATs, and warns that small enrollment and scheduling conflicts can limit choices.

Arts, athletics, service, leadership, travel, construction routes, and commuting all compete for the same evening hours. Model bedtime, not just opportunity.

Campus redevelopment

Casti Village, while the new campus is still a date on paper

The campus sits at 1310 Bryant Street, in a single-family residential neighborhood. Palo Alto certified the environmental review and approved the conditional-use permit and redevelopment on June 6, 2022.

Phase 1, the underground garage, is complete. For 2026–27, classes moved into two-story Casti Village, with classrooms, labs, studios, a library, maker and robotics space, and division hubs.

The Gunn Administration Building and Chapel Theater remain in use.

The school’s August 28 update showed active deconstruction in Phase 2. The project schedule points to opening sometime during the 2027–28 academic year, with the usual reminder that schedules slip.

Construction updates track trucks, fencing, lanes, noise, dust, security, cyclists, and pedestrians.

Commute, traffic, and after school

Free buses, a late shuttle, and a three-day ask

Students travel in from more than 50 ZIP codes, helped by free school buses and shuttles. Routes serve San Carlos, Los Altos, West Menlo Park, Portola Valley, Stanford Hills, Woodside, Burlingame, East Palo Alto, and Palo Alto Caltrain.

Morning arrivals cluster around 8:05–8:20, and Caltrain shuttles leave campus through 6:25 p.m. Other afternoon departures vary. Test home-to-stop travel, Caltrain transfers, construction detours, practice nights, and emergency pickup.

Visual and performing arts include dance, music, theatre, and visual art, combining required work and electives in both divisions.

Athletics lists a director of health and safety, an athletic trainer, and sports-medicine rehabilitation, with Middle School access and Upper School junior-varsity and varsity squads.

No public page promises general aftercare. Confirm supervised space between dismissal and rehearsals, practices, or the final shuttle, and ask about late pickup and transportation during breaks.

The 2022 permit allows staged growth toward 540, not immediate enrollment at 540. During construction, main-campus enrollment is capped at 416, rising to 450 after completion before later increases.

Traffic rules ask families to avoid solo car commutes at least three days weekly, with clockwise circulation, right turns, registered vehicles, garage drop-off, and restricted neighborhood parking.

Full cost and aid

The sticker, the first-year floor, and three aid ranges

For 2026–27, tuition and fees are $67,750. Add the school’s $650–$1,100 estimate for books and uniforms and $1,500–$2,000 for a laptop, and the known first-year floor sits at $69,900–$70,850 before unlisted expenses.

Three live school pages give three different award ranges, $4,490–$67,700, $7,500–$65,250, and $4,950–$67,700, without saying which is current. Ask for the active Fall 2027 range and one inclusive cost sheet covering deposit, meals, trips, athletics, arts, technology, and expected fundraising.

Castilleja reports an aid budget above $4 million, with one in five students receiving assistance (the 2025–26 profile reported 22%). The school strives to meet calculated need and maintains a supplemental activity budget, though returning recipients receive priority before new commitments.

Policies on nonworking-parent income and multiple-household documents can materially alter awards. Applications use Clarity, require annual renewal, and are evaluated separately from admission, with files due January 5.

Support and wellness

A dean, a counselor, and a hard line on the curriculum

Every student has a dean and an advisor. The advising page says Middle School advisory meets daily while Upper School advisory rotates through community time; the wellness page simply says all students meet weekly.

The wellness page names a director of student well-being, an Upper and Middle School counselor who also teaches sixth-grade wellness, and a counselor who is also a learning specialist. Counseling is available during the school day and select after-school hours, covering individual and group counseling, crisis intervention, parent consultation, and parent education.

Academic accommodations require current professional documentation, demonstrated limitation, and justified recommendations. Approved supports must fit a college-preparatory environment: Castilleja does not permit curriculum modifications.

Actual entry points

Grade 6 is structural; Grade 9 and later entry need arithmetic

Grade 6 is Castilleja’s earliest entry point, with approximately 60 spaces for several hundred applications.

Grade 9 is a genuine external pathway: the head’s 2026 commencement remarks refer to students who started as sixth or ninth graders, and admission evaluates more than 100 Grade 9 applications. Castilleja publishes no ninth-grade openings, offers, or enrolled-new-student count, so ask directly.

Grades 7, 8, 10, and 11 also accept applications, while Grade 12 is not listed. But being open for applications is not the same as welcoming an entry cohort.

Application process

January 5, then a short interview and a short writing sample

The deadline that matters is January 5, 2027. The $100 preliminary application and the financial-aid file are both due that day.

Ravenna opened September 1, 2026, and admission offers fee waivers.

A September 2 cached version placed a January 8 due date under a January 5 heading, but the live page now aligns on January 5. Save your Ravenna checklist and get written confirmation rather than planning around the later date.

A preliminary application must precede the interview and events, so waiting until January compresses the visit calendar. Middle School interviews last about 15 minutes after a campus visit (relocating families may interview by Zoom after the deadline).

High School interviews last about 20 minutes and occur by Zoom after January 5.

Middle School asks for a principal or counselor, a current homeroom or language-arts teacher, and the prior-year counterpart. High School asks for the current principal or counselor plus current English and math teachers.

Castilleja neither requires nor encourages extra letters from coaches, music teachers, or others.

Every applicant completes an online writing sample, estimated at 15–20 minutes with up to 30 permitted on a computer. Standardized tests like the ISEE, SSAT, and STAR are not required.

Castilleja says submitted results will not enter the file, though its transcript instructions still ask schools for prior testing. First-period transcripts are accepted through the end of January.

Admission and aid letters are mailed March 11, then posted in Ravenna March 12 at 4 p.m.

Let the student sound like herself. The interview is only 15 or 20 minutes and the timed writing sample is short.

Polishing every response into adult language can erase the curiosity, judgment, and natural voice the school says it wants.

Castilleja's seats, peak weeks and the temporary campus

Castilleja's large Grade 6 intake and its temporary campus both affect the decision, so ask for the numbers and the dates.