North Shore Country Day School

History

In the 1893, Francis King Cook opened the Rugby School for Boys in the nearby village of Kenilworth. Within the next decade, due to the opening of the fee-free Joseph Sears School, Cook moved his school to the present site today in Winnetka. Shortly after, the school reimagined itself as the Girton School For Girls. The school built three more buildings on what was then known as the Garland Estate, but by 1918-19 the school began to encounter funding difficulties. A group of parents and alumni from the Girton School and local area came together in 1919 and chose Perry Dunlap Smith to found the North Shore Country Day School for girls and boys of all ages. With the popularity of the Country Day School movement, this was seen as the next logical step for the school. The school continues to have no class rankings and no academic awards. As it became clear the Country Day school would outlast its time as a traditional school, the founder and first headmaster Perry Dunlap Smith hired Chicago area architect Edwin H. Clark to redesign the school grounds.

The school was one of 27 schools selected from a group of 250 candidate schools in the U.S. chosen in 1933 for alternative admission standards for admission to 200 selective colleges. As a progressive country day school, there was to be an enriched core curriculum with independent study. The school sought to fit the curriculum to the students' needs, rather than to require a fixed course of instruction.

At the height of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963, the school was one of 21 schools that publicly supported the Kennedy administration's policies of racial equality, stating that independent schools must offer the benefits of a quality education to all qualified students.

In July 2016, following the retirement of W. Thomas Doar III, Dr. Thomas J. Flemma became the ninth head of school in North Shore's history. Prior to being hired by North Shore, Dr. Flemma was the Associate Head of School and Dean of Faculty at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut.

Curriculum

The school follows a standard US AP curriculum, with selected subjects offered from grade 10. Should a subject not be offered, the school allows for it to be taken at nearby Northwestern University.

Rankings

In 2017, the school was ranked the 3rd best private high school in the state of Illinois (of 119), and 57th best in the country (of 3,231)

ACT results

For the Class of 2016, the middle 50% ACT range was 29-33. The exam is marked out of 36.

Schedule

After two years of research and development, the school introduced a new schedule for the 2015-16 academic year.

Post-secondary

Typically, NSCDS has a 100% success rate in university and college placement. In 2013, 8% of graduates chose universities outside the United States.

Sport

Physical education is required at all grade levels, and interscholastic competition is required of students in 6th to 11th grades. North Shore is a member of the Chicago Independent School League and competes against eight other secondary schools in the Chicago area.

As of 2016, the following sports were available:

Notable alumni