How to Get Into St. Paul’s School: Best Guide to Admissions

Everything families need to understand about St. Paul’s School admissions, from the January 15 deadline to what a fully residential community actually asks of a fourteen-year-old.

Quick Answer for Busy Parents

St. Paul’s School is a 100% residential Episcopal boarding school in Concord, New Hampshire, enrolling about 540 students in grades nine through twelve. Applications run through Gateway to Prep Schools and close January 15. Every applicant submits a standardized test score, a graded writing sample, four recommendations and a set of short answers. There is no long personal essay. The interview is step three of the School’s seven published steps and opens in June, which is the single most commonly missed detail in this process.

Why Do Families Choose St. Paul’s School?

George Cheyne Shattuck Jr. founded St. Paul’s in 1856, and the School opened its 171st academic year in September 2026 under its fourteenth Rector, Kathy Giles. The mission has stayed unusually consistent: to educate students to build purposeful lives in service to the greater good, in a community the School describes as diverse, inclusive and ethical, and inspired by the beauty of its Millville home.

What families actually choose, though, is the structure. St. Paul’s is one of the only fully residential independent secondary schools in the United States. Every teacher and every student lives on the grounds. There is no commuter population that empties the campus at 3:30, which means the adviser who taught your child chemistry is also the neighbor two doors down and the person at the dinner table. The School calls this SPS 360, the integration of social, emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth, and it is backed by a Living in Community curriculum taught by six dedicated instructors across all four forms.

The grounds are part of the argument. Originally 50 acres, the campus now runs to 2,000, including 25 miles of wooded trails, four ponds and the upper third of the Turkey River. Chapel gathers the whole community four mornings a week. The Honor Code is one sentence: to live honorably, members of the St. Paul’s community strive to be truthful, respectful and kind.

St. Paul’s School Academic Snapshot

How Hard Is It to Get Into St. Paul’s School?

Harder than most, and we will not pretend to a precision nobody has. St. Paul’s does not publish an acceptance rate, and the figures circulating on aggregator sites disagree with each other by several points. What can be said accurately is this: the School enrolls roughly 540 students total, it belongs to the Ten Schools Admission Organization alongside peers like Phillips Andover, and it competes for the same applicant pool as the handful of New England boarding schools at the top of every family’s list.

The review is holistic in the real sense rather than the marketing sense. The School reads twelve components together, and no single one carries the file. A 99th-percentile SSAT does not offset a recommendation that describes a student as difficult to teach, and a moving short answer does not rescue a downward grade trend. If you want context on how selectivity actually works at this tier, our explainer on acceptance rates at top private schools is a better guide than any single number, and families still shaping a school list should read how to build a balanced boarding school list first.

One structural note worth understanding. Because St. Paul’s is entirely residential, the admissions committee is not only deciding whether your child can handle the academics. They are deciding whether your child can live well in a house with peers, manage themselves without a parent in the next room, and contribute to a community that never fully switches off. That is a different judgment than a day school makes, and it explains why the personal recommendation and the interview carry as much weight as they do.

Top Tips for Applying to St. Paul’s School

• Start in the spring before your application year, not the fall of it.
• Submit Gateway Part 1 as early as you can; it unlocks the interview calendar.
• Sit an accepted standardized test early enough to retake in January if needed.
• Have your child build a real relationship with their current English and math teachers.
• Visit the campus if travel allows; a fully residential school is difficult to judge remotely.

Best Practices for a Strong Application

• Answer the short-answer prompts as asked, in your child’s own voice, without AI assistance.
• Choose a graded writing sample with substantive teacher comments on it.
• Ask for recommendations before the winter crush, and give teachers real context.
• Prepare both student and parent for the interview, since both will be speaking.
• Track all twelve checklist items in one place so nothing slips in January.

Common Questions About St. Paul’s School Selectivity

Does St. Paul’s School publish an acceptance rate?

No. Third-party estimates range from roughly 14% to 18%, the school doesn’t publish a figure and here’s why the number matters less than you think. Treat St. Paul’s as highly selective and build your list accordingly.

Is St. Paul’s test-optional?

No. Standardized testing is required of all applicants, and the School accepts six different tests, so there is real flexibility in which one your child sits.

Does applying for an upper form hurt my child’s chances?

The School does not publish seat counts by form, and availability shifts year to year. Ask the admissions office directly about the entry year you are considering.

The St. Paul’s School Admissions Process

St. Paul’s publishes its process as a numbered sequence, and the order matters more than families expect. Work through it in the School’s order rather than your own.

1. Complete the online inquiry form so your family is in the admissions database and receives School communications.
2. Submit the Candidate Profile, which is Part 1 of the Gateway to Prep Schools application. Do this well before the deadline.
3. Schedule an interview. On-campus interviews run June through January; virtual interviews run September through January. Gateway Part 1 must be submitted first.
4. Submit test scores. Any accepted test, taken within one year of the deadline.
5. Complete the Gateway application, including short answers, transcripts, recommendations and the graded writing sample.
6. Submit optional supplementary materials if your child is a serious athlete, artist, actor, dancer or musician.

St. Paul’s School Admissions Calendar and Events

The School travels widely each fall, attending secondary school fairs, diversity roundtable receptions and Ten Schools Admission Organization events across the country. Admissions officers will arrange interviews with families while they are in the area, which is worth knowing if a trip to New Hampshire is difficult. The calendar below reflects the School’s published schedule; it is updated regularly, so confirm before you travel.

St. Paul’s School Application Requirements

A complete application has twelve components. Below is what each one actually asks for, in the School’s own terms rather than a generic boarding school template.

Standardized Testing

Required of every applicant, with no grade-by-grade variation. St. Paul’s accepts the SSAT, ISEE, PSAT, PreACT, ACT and SAT, and the test must be taken within one year of the deadline. The School prefers scores before January 15 but will consider January retake results. Send scores using code 6886 for the SSAT or 300110 for the ISEE; ACT, PSAT and SAT results are emailed to the admissions office. Choosing between the two most common options is worth doing deliberately rather than by default, and a proctored diagnostic will tell you more in one sitting than a month of speculation. Our SSAT preparation and ISEE preparation pages cover what each test actually measures.

English Proficiency Testing

Applicants who do not speak English at home must submit the TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo English Test in addition to an accepted standardized test. The School notes that most international students score above 100 on the TOEFL, 130 on the Duolingo English Test and 7.5 on IELTS. Students enrolled for three or more years at a school where English is the primary language of instruction are exempt. Families new to this requirement should read what international families should know about U.S. boarding schools before building a testing calendar.

Short Answers: Gateway Part 2

This is the only required writing beyond the graded sample, and it is short. The School asks about a personal strength that helps others, the last thing that sparked genuine curiosity, the greatest teacher outside the family, and an accomplishment that took real work. Most responses are capped at 300 characters, with a longer optional field at the end. St. Paul’s states plainly that it expects all writing to reflect the applicant’s own work, without assistance, including from artificial intelligence tools.

Three hundred characters is about two sentences. That constraint is the point. A student who has been trained to open with a thesis and build to a conclusion has to do something different here, and the students who do it well are usually the ones who have actually thought about the question before, not the ones with the best prose.

Graded Writing Sample

A longer piece your child submitted to school this academic year, written in English, preferably from English class, with teacher comments still visible. An accompanying form asks for the course name and a short description of the assignment, and the file must be a PDF under 2MB. Choose the paper your child is proud of rather than the one with the highest mark. Because this sample stands in for the on-demand writing many peer schools test directly, our proctored writing sample preparation is a useful parallel for building the underlying skill.

Recommendations

The School allows one useful exception: a student on a block schedule who has not yet taken English or math this year may substitute a history or science teacher. Prior-year teachers are welcome for the personal or special interest forms. How your child asks for these shapes what comes back, and the request should go out well before the December pile-up.

Transcripts

Current grades plus official transcripts from the previous two years. If semester grades will not be ready before January 15, the School asks that your school send what it has and that you email the admissions office with a date so a note can go in the file. This happens routinely and is not held against applicants.

Parent Statement

Parents complete short responses describing what an adviser should know about their child, where adults will need to offer support, and the family’s relationship with their child’s current school. Note the framing: the School is asking about support needs, not achievements. Our guidance on writing a parent statement walks through the difference between advocacy and honesty, which is the line that matters most in this particular form.

Interview

Available on the grounds from June through January and virtually from September through January, and only bookable once Gateway Part 1 is submitted. For families applying for entry in a given fall, the tour and interview schedule is typically released in late July. Both parents and students should expect to speak. Interview preparation here is not about scripting; it is about making sure a nervous fourteen-year-old can talk about what genuinely interests them to an adult they have just met.

Optional Supplementary Materials

Build a St. Paul’s Application That Holds Together

Twelve components, one January deadline, and an interview window that opens in June. We help families sequence it properly instead of racing the calendar.

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Questions Families Ask About St. Paul’s Requirements

Is there an application essay?

No traditional essay. The School states the only required writing assignment is the short-answer section of Gateway Part 2, supplemented by the graded writing sample.

Can last year’s teachers write the recommendations?

Not the English, math or counselor forms, which must come from current-year faculty. Prior-year teachers are welcome to write the personal or special interest recommendations.

What if our semester grades are late?

Send what is available and email the admissions office with the expected date. The School explicitly anticipates this.

Does St. Paul’s allow AI assistance on the application?

No. The School expects all writing to reflect the applicant’s own work without assistance, and names artificial intelligence tools specifically.

Student Life at St. Paul’s School

Academics

Teaching happens around Harkness tables, which means discussion rather than lecture, and it means a quiet student cannot hide for four years. The curriculum spans five areas of study: arts, humanities, languages, mathematics and sciences. There are more than 30 humanities electives, 14 science laboratories, 62 art courses, and both Latin and Greek alongside Chinese, French, German and Spanish. St. Paul’s does not offer an Advanced Placement curriculum; its highest-level courses are designated honors and advanced, several of which use college-level texts. Students take five credits in each of three terms. Families used to counting AP courses should read our guidance on how course rigor is actually evaluated before treating the absence of AP as a gap.

Activities

More than 70 clubs and societies, ranging from computer science and finance to fishing and jewelry making. Some are institutions: the Missionary Society, the student newspaper The Pelican, and the Debate Team all go back generations, and Horae Scholasticae carries student writing and art. Others are current: Funkdefied is a female dance group built around body positivity, Sparkle for Hope makes jewelry for people in need, and the Pickleball Club has drawn close to 40 percent of the student body. Every student also belongs to one of three school clubs founded in the 1880s, Delphian, Isthmian and Old Hundred, which now earn points for athletic, academic and community contributions and compete for the Form of 2011 Club Cup. Showing leadership through activities like these matters in a boarding application, where the committee is imagining your child inside the community rather than beside it.

Athletics

St. Paul’s competes as Big Red, a Class A/Division I member of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council and a member of New Hampshire’s Lakes Region League. Programs run at club, junior varsity and varsity levels, and the School is explicit that athletics are an integrated part of the experience rather than an extracurricular for the talented few. Varsity golf was added for the 2025 season, competing in the Lakes Region League and against NEPSAC opponents including Exeter and Andover.

Arts

With 62 art courses and roughly a fifth of students playing in an ensemble, the arts are not a sideline. Dance, music, drama and fine arts each have dedicated faculty, and the fact that the School invites prospective dancers to take a placement class and prospective musicians to submit six to ten minutes of performance tells you how seriously the admissions office treats serious artists.

Residential Life

Nineteen houses, faculty living in residence, and Chapel four mornings a week. This is the part of St. Paul’s that no campus tour fully conveys and no brochure can promise. It suits students who want their school and their life to be the same thing, and it is genuinely hard for students who need the distance of a commute. Parents weighing this honestly will get more from how elite families decide between day and boarding school than from another set of statistics.

Summer Programs

One correction worth making, because it appears frequently in third-party write-ups. The Advanced Studies Program at St. Paul’s is not a feeder or enrichment program for prospective applicants. Running since 1958, the five-week ASP serves talented rising seniors and highly motivated rising juniors from high schools around New Hampshire. The 2026 session ran June 21 to July 26 with 162 students, more than 15 major courses, an average class size of 12 and a 3:1 student-to-faculty ratio. If your family is not in New Hampshire, ASP is not a route into St. Paul’s School admissions.

Famous St. Paul’s School Alumni

1. John Kerry, Form of 1962. U.S. Secretary of State, longtime U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, and the Democratic nominee for President in 2004, later a central figure in international climate negotiations.
2. Robert Mueller, Form of 1962. Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2001 to 2013 and subsequently Special Counsel at the Department of Justice.
3. Garry Trudeau, Form of 1966. Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and creator of Doonesbury, among the most influential editorial cartoonists in the United States.
4. Lorene Cary, Form of 1974. Novelist, memoirist and educator, best known for Black Ice, a memoir of her experience as one of the first Black female students at St. Paul’s.
5. Hobey Baker, Form of 1910. A foundational figure in American hockey and a World War I aviator; the Hobey Baker Award for the top NCAA men’s ice hockey player carries his name.
6. Will Ahmed. Founder and chief executive of the wearable technology company WHOOP.

A note on how to read that list. It is genuinely distinguished, and it is also the product of a school that has been enrolling students since 1856. What the alumni record tells you is that St. Paul’s has long produced people who go into public life and stay there. What it does not tell you is anything about your own child’s odds, and any consultant who implies otherwise is selling you something.

Is St. Paul’s School Right for Your Family?

The decision here is not really about selectivity. It is about whether your child is ready for a school with no off-switch, where the chemistry teacher is also the person down the hall and Chapel gathers everyone four mornings a week before the day begins. For the right student that is the most formative four years available anywhere in American secondary education. For the wrong one it is a long way from home. We would rather help you answer that question truthfully in March than help you write short answers in December.

Talk With a St. Paul’s School Admissions Expert

Start with fit, then build the application. We will tell you honestly what we think, including when we think the answer is no.

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Related Articles:
The St. Paul’s School Admissions Process, Month by Month
What St. Paul’s School Alumni Reveal About St. Paul’s School Admissions
Life at St. Paul’s School: What 100% Boarding Means for St. Paul’s School Admissions

Families comparing New England options alongside St. Paul’s often look at Phillips Academy Andover, a fellow Ten Schools member with a very different day-and-boarding structure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Navigating the secondary school search from Manhattan can quickly turn into an overwhelming process. When we zeroed in on St. Paul’s, Cardinal Education provided the clear-eyed, strategic direction we desperately needed. They kept us well ahead of the June interview timeline, helped refine our son’s Gateway short answers so his voice shone through without sounding over-coached, and brought executive-level structure to the entire application. Their candid advice throughout made all the difference, and seeing him thrive in Concord has validated every decision.

— Parent of a St. Paul’s School Class of ’28 Student, Manhattan, NY