Kent School
Kent School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Kent, Connecticut. Founded in 1906, it is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It educates around 520 boys and girls in grades 9–12.
Kent was one of the first schools to provide tuition discounts based on what a family could afford to pay. The school's list of notable alumni includes artist Lana Del Rey, philosopher John Rawls, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, and three winners of the Pulitzer Prize.
History
Founding and ethos
Kent School was founded by Anglo-Catholic Episcopal priest Frederick Herbert Sill in 1906. It arrived at the tail end of the wave of British-style boarding schools set up at the turn of the twentieth century. Sill admired England and wanted to spread English influence within the United States. The school was originally associated with the Anglican Benedictine Order of the Holy Cross, but gained its independence from the Order in 1943.Although Kent has occasionally been categorized within Saint Grottlesex, a group of boarding schools with traditionally upper-class student bodies, the school advertises itself as "an elite school, not a school for elites." Under Sill, Kent's culture was egalitarian for its day. When Kent was founded, the Gilded Age had ended, and the New York elite that Sill expected to fund his school were either unwilling or unable to bankroll another prep school.
Sill realized that many of his students would have to come "from families of moderate means who could not afford the tuition fees at the then established boarding schools of the Church." To accommodate those families, he introduced a "sliding-scale tuition model," a forerunner of today's financial aid system, under which poor parents paid only what they could afford, and rich parents were asked to cover the difference. In 1927, the average tuition fee was $800, with parents contributing anything from $0 to $1,500. By contrast, that year, the St. Grottlesex schools all charged between $1,200 and $1,400.
Under Sill, all students, rich or poor, were required to help pay their own way by working on the school farm or doing school chores. Sill also discouraged rich students from flaunting their wealth, explaining that "we object to fur coats as such, but to see school boys sporting fur coats... strikes us as rather ostentatious." Kent was also said to have been "more accommodating to those students who were drawn to creative pursuits than some of Kent's counterparts."
Despite its humble beginnings, Kent established a strong reputation. Due to Sill's desire to limit the student body to 300 students, the school's waitlist became "unmanageably long." To meet increasing demand, Sill established South Kent School in 1923. He retired in 1941 after a paralytic stroke, and died in 1952.
Development
Following Kent's 1943 disassociation from the Order of the Holy Cross, the school retained its broader affiliation with the Episcopal Church. However, in the 1950s, it began allowing Catholic students to attend Sunday Mass in town. Today, attendance at Kent's Episcopal Sunday chapel service is voluntary.In 1954, Kent admitted its first African-American and Asian students. In addition, the school offered a scholarship to a black South African student in 1955. However, the apartheid-era South African government refused to grant the student a passport, causing an international incident.
The school established a coordinate girls' school in 1960, over a decade before the other St. Grottlesex schools adopted co-education. However, until 1992, girls occupied a separate campus nearly five miles away. When Kent began admitting girls, it dropped the sliding-scale tuition model and shifted to a more conventional financial aid system.
Present day
'69 became headmaster in 1981 and led the school until 2020. When he arrived, Kent was in a period of transition. Under Sill, the school had been reliant on tuition to make ends meet. With the cost of education spiraling upwards, Kent ran budget deficits for much of the 1970s. In addition, Kent spent much of its financial endowment building the new girls' campus. When Schell took over, Kent's endowment stood at $3 million.Schell improved Kent's financial position by raising a large endowment, which stood at $87 million in 2017. He also attracted wealthy international students; at Kent, international students typically pay full tuition, although some scholarships may be awarded. Under Schell, the percentage of international students at Kent increased roughly fourfold, doubling to 15.5% by 1996 and doubling again to 30% by 2015. As of the 2023–24 school year, Kent does not disclose its percentage of international students, but it states that its students come from 30 U.S. states and 34 countries. Although Kent's increased revenues generally allowed the school to offer more robust financial aid to domestic students, the percentage of students on financial aid has fluctuated in recent years, shifting from 22% in 1999 to 43% in 2013, 29% in 2019, and 35% in 2023.
In 2020, Michael Hirschfeld was appointed Head of School. He was previously Kent's assistant director of admissions in the 1990s, and most recently served as rector of St. Paul's School in New Hampshire. The student body shrunk during the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping from 580 students in 2020 to 504 in 2021. Since 2022, enrollment has held steady at 520 students. The school's strategic plan states that its near-term priorities are to "move toward 50% of students on financial aid," to maintain the boarding student population at 470, and to improve the school dormitories and faculty housing.
In the 2021–22 school year, Kent enrolled 80 freshmen, 125 sophomores, 149 juniors, and 150 seniors and post-graduate students, for a total enrollment of 504 students. Of these 504 students, Kent reported that 289 were white, 134 were Asian, 24 were black, 24 were Hispanic, and 33 were multiracial ; the survey did not allow Kent to classify students in two or more categories, or to distinguish between domestic and international students.
Academics
Kent follows a trimester system in which a school year is fall, winter, and spring terms. Classes are held from Monday to Saturday, with Wednesdays and Saturdays being half-days to accommodate athletic contests and other after-school activities. The school has announced that it intends to phase out Advanced Placement classes and to replace them with Kent-designed "Advanced Studies" classes.Kent grades students on an unweighted 4.0 GPA scale, but does not rank students or calculate a student's cumulative GPA. Students in the Class of 2023 had an average SAT score of 1313 and an average ACT score of 28.1.
Finances
Tuition and financial aid
In the 2023–24 school year, Kent charged boarding students $73,450 and day students $54,600, plus other optional and mandatory fees. 35% of students received financial aid, which covered, on average, $54,000.Endowment and expenses
In its Internal Revenue Service filings for the 2022–23 school year, Kent reported total assets of $214.9 million, net assets of $167.4 million, investment holdings of $132.2 million, and cash holdings of $17.8 million. Kent also reported $38.5 million in program service expenses and $6.8 million in grants.Facilities
Academic and administrative facilities
- Administration Building
- Rev. Richardson W. Schell '69 House
- RAD House
- Schoolhouse and John Gray Park '28 Library
- Foley Hall
- Dickinson Science Building
- Howard and Judith B. Wentz Center for Engineering and Applied Sciences
- Mattison Auditorium
- Music Center
- Field Building
- '''Hoerle Hall'''
Student facilities
- St. Joseph's Chapel is a Romanesque church located in the center of campus. All school meetings and Formal Dinner, Tuesday, and Sunday chapel services are held here. The chapel was designed by architects, Roger Bullard, Arthur Harmon, and Philip Frohman. The original construction of St. Joseph’s Chapel began on May 14, 1930 and concluded on September 20, 1930. The Chapel is home to a bell tower with ten bells made by Whitechapel bellfoundry, installed in 1931, and a Hook & Hastings organ. Students can join the Bell Ringing Guild as an activity and learn to play the organ through the Music department.
- Six dormitories
Athletic facilities
- Magowan Fieldhouse
- Sill Boat House and Benjamin Waring Partridge '62 Rowing Center, which hosts to the school's rowing trophy room
- Nadal Hockey Rink and Springs Center
- The Bourke Racquet Center.
- Michael O. Page Equestrian Center
- South Fieldhouse
- Playing fields
- Cross-country course
- Mountain biking trails
Athletics
Interscholastic sports offered
Fall- Football
- Boys Soccer
- Girls Soccer
- Boys Cross Country
- Girls Cross Country
- Field Hockey
- Volleyball
- Boys Basketball
- Girls Basketball
- Boys Ice Hockey
- Girls Ice Hockey
- Boys Squash
- Girls Squash
- Boys Swimming
- Girls Swimming
- Co-ed Varsity Diving
- Baseball
- Softball
- Boys Tennis
- Girls Tennis
- Co-ed Varsity Golf
- Boys Crew
- Girls Crew
- Boys Lacrosse
- Girls Lacrosse