Upper School · Grades 9–12 · ages 14–18
Rigour with a spine of purpose
The Upper School is academically serious — full university-preparatory curriculum, honest grading, and college counselling that starts with the student, not the shield on the sweatshirt. What makes it Marlowe is the Thesis: every senior spends a year on one question that matters to them, and defends it in public.
- Class size
- 15 students in most senior courses
- Tuition 2026–27
- $33,600 / year*
- Grades
- Grades 9–12
*Illustrative — see tuition & indexed tuition. This is a sample site.
What Upper School is built on
Four commitments, kept daily
A real academic core
Four years of English, math, science, and social science, plus continued Spanish or German through at least Grade 11 — advanced and honours sections in each discipline.
The Senior Thesis
A year-long, mentored inquiry — research, build, or performance — presented and defended publicly at Thesis Night in May. It has been the graduation requirement since 1974.
College counselling, unhurried
One counsellor to roughly forty students, starting properly in Grade 10. The goal is fit, and we say plainly that a famous name is not a plan.
Leadership with a job attached
Seniors run Lantern Walk, coach Lower School reading buddies, and captain the outdoor program. Leadership at Marlowe always has someone real on the other end of it.
A day in the life
What a real day here actually looks like
A Wednesday in Grade 11 — the year the Thesis question starts circling and the college conversation begins in earnest.
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8:30
English seminar
Fourteen students around one table. The essay drafts come back annotated in the margins, not graded and forgotten.
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9:30
Advanced chemistry
Dr. Raman's lab practical: synthesize, then defend your yield to the bench next to you. Error analysis counts for a third of the mark.
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10:45
Free block
Genuinely free. Some students book the fabrication lab, some meet their Thesis mentor early, some nap in the library armchairs. All three are fine.
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11:45
Spanish IV
Seminar in Spanish on the term's novel. The letter-exchange students from Grade 8 are now arguing literature in their second language.
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12:45
Lunch & advisory
Advisory twice a week at lunch through Grade 12 — the same advisor from Grade 9, who will eventually write the college letter that actually knows the kid.
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1:30
History of ideas
The Grade 11 signature course: one problem per term (this term: what do we owe strangers?) read across philosophy, history, and economics.
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2:30
Thesis lab
Juniors shadow a senior's project meeting to see what a year of one question looks like. Proposal drafts for their own are due in April.
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3:30
Athletics, arts, or work
Varsity practice, Mainstage rehearsal, or a paid job — the schedule protects all three as legitimate afternoons.
The Upper School signature
Thesis Night
One evening each May, the whole school and half of Elmbridge turn out to hear every senior defend a year of work — restored engines, original one-act plays, water-quality studies, a history of the school's own chapel. It is the best argument for the school we know how to make.
“Thesis Night sold us. Forty-eight teenagers who could each talk for ten unscripted minutes about something they'd actually done — I've hired adults who couldn't.”
Considering Upper School?
An honest word about admissions
Upper School admissions reads transcripts carefully but interviews more carefully. A B student with a genuine pull toward something has beaten a transcript of polished indifference here many times.