How to Get Into Eastside Preparatory School: Tips From the Experts

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Eastside Preparatory School is a selective independent day school in Kirkland, Washington, serving 538 students in grades 5 through 12. Applications for the 2027-28 year open in September 2026 through Aryval and close on January 14, 2027. The school is test flexible, accepts applications for grades 5 through 11, and requires two teacher evaluations, three years of records, a 250-word student essay, and an asynchronous online student assessment. Upper School decisions arrive February 19, 2027; Middle School decisions follow on March 19.

Why Do Families Choose Eastside Prep?

Eastside Prep was founded in 2002 by parents and educators who wanted something the Seattle area did not then have: a school built around inquiry and interdisciplinary work rather than coverage and ranking. It opened in 2003 with 17 students. It now serves 538, and it has kept the thing that made it unusual, which is a refusal to sort students by course label.

There is no Advanced Placement here, no International Baccalaureate, and no Honors designation. When a course is described as advanced, that means it requires prior coursework, nothing more. For families who have spent years reading transcripts for those markers, that absence takes some getting used to. What replaces it is a structure that asks students to build something of their own: seminars, independent study, independent projects, and a senior thesis spanning two trimesters.

Three principles run through the curriculum: inquiry, meaning students and teachers pursue real questions inside each discipline; experience, meaning students practice the actual habits of mind each discipline demands; and integration, meaning the connections between subjects are the point rather than a bonus.

Eastside Prep at a Glance

Eastside Prep is accredited by the Northwest Association of Independent Schools and holds approved private school status with the Washington State Board of Education, alongside membership in the National Association of Independent Schools and the Washington Federation of Independent Schools. If you are weighing what those credentials actually signal, our guide to private school accreditation is a useful companion.

How Hard Is It to Get Into Eastside Prep?

Eastside Prep does not publish an acceptance rate. Any percentage you find on a third-party ranking site is an unconfirmed estimate, and we would rather say so than repeat it. What the school does make clear is where the space is. The Middle School begins at grade 5 and the Upper School at grade 9, and those two division starts are where a meaningful cohort of new students enters. Applications for grades 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11 are accepted and read, but availability in those years depends on currently enrolled students leaving. Grade 12 applications are not accepted at all.

The committee reads holistically. Records across three years show academic trajectory, two teacher evaluations show how your child behaves in a room with other people, the essay and short answers show how they think, and the recorded assessment shows who they are when nobody is scripting for them. No single element carries the decision.

Most families weighing Eastside Prep are weighing it against a short list of regional peers. The nearest structural comparison is The Overlake School in Redmond, another independent school spanning middle and upper grades on a single campus with a similar commuting catchment. Families willing to cross the bridge often add Lakeside School to the list. What separates Eastside Prep from most of that group is not selectivity but structure: the deliberate absence of AP and IB is a philosophical commitment, and a student who thrives on measurable rank may be happier elsewhere. That is a fit question worth answering honestly before January.

Top Tips for Applying

• Target a division start if your child’s age gives you the choice. Grades 5 and 9 have the most room.
• Choose your testing route deliberately. School-administered testing is weighed equally with the ISEE and SSAT.
• Book the parent interview the week it opens in October.
• Ask for teacher evaluations before winter break.
• Have your child practice the online assessment platform properly rather than skipping to the real thing.

Best Practices for Families

• Send exactly what is asked for. Eastside Prep refuses supplementary portfolios and certificates outright.
• Let the parent statement sound like you, not like a consultant.
• Be specific about why this school and not simply why a good school.
• Request writing accommodations early if your child receives them at school.
• Verify every date against the school’s current admissions page, since the process changed this cycle.

Common Questions About Eastside Prep Admissions

Is Eastside Prep test optional or test flexible?

Test flexible, and the distinction matters. Test optional usually means you may omit scores. Test flexible here means Eastside Prep will accept the standardized testing your child already takes at school, such as Smarter Balanced, MAP, ERB or Iowa results from the past two years, and weigh it equivalently against the ISEE or SSAT. Only one set is required.

Which test should we submit?

If your child tests well in familiar conditions and has recent school results, that route costs nothing extra and carries no scheduling burden. If your child is homeschooled, arriving from overseas, or simply performs better on a test designed for admissions, the ISEE or SSAT gives a cleaner signal. Eastside Prep has no preference between the two admissions tests.

The Eastside Prep Admissions Process

Applications for the 2027-28 year run through Aryval, the school’s new platform, though teacher evaluations and the student assessment link still sit in Ravenna Hub. Eastside Prep belongs to the Puget Sound Independent Schools consortium, so several of the family forms are shared across more than forty regional schools and only need completing once.

1. Complete the preliminary application. Student and household profile in Aryval. Returning applicants may only need to update existing details.
2. Submit the PSIS common family forms. Parent and guardian statements, the student interests and activities form, the 250-word student essay, and short-answer responses.
3. Send three years of student records. Grades and transcripts including the current year, uploaded through Aryval.
4. Arrange two teacher evaluations. Completed in Ravenna Hub by teachers from the current or previous school year, ideally in two different disciplines.
5. Provide one set of test scores. Either recent school-administered standardized testing or the ISEE or SSAT. Not both.
6. Complete the student online assessment. Recorded video responses plus written responses, taken asynchronously at any point before the deadline.
7. Book the parent and guardian interview. Thirty minutes, virtual, in Aryval from October. Formally optional, practically expected.

Eastside Prep Admissions Calendar and Key Dates

Alongside the application calendar, Eastside Prep runs preview events with sample classes and parent panels, guided campus tours led by admissions staff, virtual information sessions, drop-in admissions office hours, and a self-guided exterior tour with QR-linked signage available on weekday evenings and weekends. Specific dates change each season. Our guidance on what to ask and observe at private school open houses will make those visits considerably more useful.

Eastside Prep Application Requirements

Parent and guardian statements

A PSIS common form, completed in Aryval. This is where the committee learns who your family is and what you are looking for in a school. The most common failure is writing an achievement summary instead of a portrait. Our parent statement guidance addresses that directly.

Student essay and short answers

Roughly 250 words across one to two paragraphs, plus brief short-answer responses meant to catch personality in the moment. Brevity is the difficulty. A student with one specific thing to say will outperform a student with five general ones, which is the same principle behind a strong personal statement.

Teacher evaluations

Two, submitted in Ravenna Hub. Fifth and sixth grade applicants should approach homeroom or primary teachers. Applicants to grades 7 through 11 should approach core subject teachers in English, history, math or science. In both cases the school prefers two different disciplines and teachers who have taught the student in the current or previous year.

Student records

Three years of grades and transcripts including the current school year. Homeschooling families who lack a formal transcript can instead summarize topics, skills and experiences by discipline, and the school specifically asks that physical education and creative work be included since both are part of the core program.

Testing routes compared

Student online assessment

Your child registers, runs a technical check, practices as many times as they wish, then records video answers and writes responses. The platform submits automatically. Because it is asynchronous, there is no live interview to schedule and no single high-pressure moment, but there is also nobody in the room to warm your child up. Students who rehearse into stiffness do worse than students who prepare and then speak naturally.

Parent and guardian interview

Thirty minutes, virtual, booked in Aryval on a first-come basis from October. The school calls it optional while simultaneously saying it hopes to interview every applying family, and slots are limited. Book early. Our interview preparation work is about helping parents talk about their child honestly rather than impressively.

International applicants

Eastside Prep defines an international student as someone who is not a US citizen or permanent resident, for whom English is a second language, and who has either never lived in the US or attended school here for under two years. There is no ESL program, so English proficiency testing is required, with TOEFL and TOEFL Junior preferred and IELTS, iTEP-SLATE and EIKEN also accepted. International students must live with an immediate family member; homestays and independent living are not considered. The school issues I-20 forms where an F-1 visa is needed.

Not sure where your child stands?

We will look at your child’s record, testing options and timeline, and give you a straight assessment of what an Eastside Prep application would need to look like.

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Questions Families Ask About Fit

Will my child be overwhelmed, or under-challenged?

With an average class size of 16 and an 8:1 student-teacher ratio, there is very little room to be invisible, in either direction. Teachers notice a struggling student quickly, and they notice a coasting one just as fast.

Does Eastside Prep suit a student who needs structure?

That depends on the student. An independent curriculum gives a self-directed learner room to run, but it asks a lot of a student who relies on external deadlines and clear instructions. This is worth thinking about honestly rather than optimistically, because the senior thesis is not a course anyone can be carried through.

Student Life at Eastside Prep

Academics

Core disciplines are English, social science, mathematics, science, Spanish, technology, physical education, and the fine and performing arts. World language instruction is Spanish only, though students may petition to study another language externally. The independent curriculum is where the school distinguishes itself: seminars for grades 10 through 12 run six weeks, meet weekly and are ungraded, covering multidisciplinary material outside the core. Eleventh and twelfth graders may propose a ten-week independent study, which is research-oriented, or an independent project, which is production-oriented. Twelfth graders may take on a senior thesis spanning two trimesters, building on earlier independent work or opening a new line entirely.

That structure rewards students who can plan and self-start. For a student who has always been carried by clear deadlines, executive function coaching is usually a better investment than subject tutoring, and it is best begun before the independent work starts rather than during it.

Activities and clubs

Club offerings change every trimester and are largely student-initiated, which means the roster genuinely turns over rather than sitting static on a webpage. Middle School students choose a club or activity each term as a requirement; Upper School students may join one or use the period to meet with teachers and peers. Upper School robotics practices begin in late summer alongside fall athletics. If your child is the sort to start something rather than join it, our guide to launching a club in high school is a practical place to begin, and that kind of initiative carries real weight in admissions at this level.

Athletics

Eight sports across 20 teams: basketball, cross country, rowing, soccer, tennis, track and field, Ultimate, and volleyball. Rowing and Ultimate are the distinctive entries, and rowing is open from eighth grade upward. Upper School athletes compete under Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rules, which require seven practices before competition, and fall practices begin in late August. Middle School sports for fifth and sixth graders largely run during the school day, while seventh and eighth grade practices are after school.

Arts

The fine and performing arts program spans music, visual arts and theatre across all grades. Visual arts run from The Magic of Art and Art Meets Tech in grades 5 and 6 through printmaking, paper engineering, graphic design, digital photography, digital filmmaking and digital illustration in the Upper School, supported by a media production studio with professional cameras, a green screen, portrait backdrops, a lighting grid and film and music production software. Theatre progresses from introductory acting and Playing Shakespeare in the Middle School to directing and stagecraft in the Upper School. The production calendar typically runs a Middle School show in the fall, an Upper School show in the winter, and an all-school musical spanning grades 5 through 12 in the spring.

Beyond the classroom

Eastside Prep runs an experiential education program with fall orientation experiences by grade level, including overnight trips for sixth and twelfth graders. Three bus routes serve families further afield, covering Renton and Seattle, the I-90 corridor through Issaquah, Bellevue and Mercer Island, and the 405 North corridor through Lynnwood, Bothell, Woodinville and Redmond. The school does not currently publish a summer program, so families looking for summer enrichment should plan around outside options.

Eastside Prep Alumni

Eastside Prep is a young school. It graduated its first class in 2009, and those first graduates went on to Brown University, the University of Washington, Lewis and Clark College, Arizona State University and Dickinson College, among others. Today the school reports that 99% of graduates enroll in college.

We are not listing individual notable alumni on this page. A school that has been graduating classes for under two decades has an alumni network still early in its professional arc, and the names circulating on other admissions sites could not be independently corroborated. We would rather tell you that plainly than pad the section.

What Families Say

Eastside Prep transformed our child from a student who simply memorized facts into a self-directed thinker who truly owns their learning. Huge thanks to Cardinal Education for helping us throughout the process.

— Eastside Prep parent

Eastside Prep asks applicants to show something that a transcript cannot: what your child does with an open question when nobody has told them the answer. That is exactly what the seminars, the independent projects and the thesis will demand of them later, and it is what the application is quietly testing for now. Families who understand that early apply very differently from families who do not.

Let’s talk about your child

Tell us where your child is now and we will tell you honestly what the next twelve months should look like.

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Related Reading

Sports at Eastside Preparatory School: Teams, Seasons and How Athletics Works

Inside Eastside Preparatory School’s Arts Programs: Music, Visual Arts and Theatre

Frequently Asked Questions