Revealing the Lesser-Known Powers of Schools for Girls

When I was a 13-year-old embarking on the independent school application process, I only included coed schools in my search. My thought at the time was “I don’t need a school for girls; I have 2 brothers at home, I can handle a coed school.” Looking back, I now realize how deeply I misunderstood what a school for girls is actually about and also how much I missed by dismissing them without taking the time to actually get to know them.

In many ways, a school for girls is no different than a coed school. Both offer a wide variety of courses, many extracurricular activities, and leadership opportunities. Mission and community are what differentiate schools. Both a coed school and Dana Hall School offer AP Physics, a varsity lacrosse team, and a Model U.N. team, but how many coed schools can say that every member of their AP Physics class is a girl? Or that the Student Council Presidents, best athletes, and valedictorians are always girls?

Thinking back to my 13-year-old self, if I had constantly seen girls like me named the MVP of the league championship lacrosse team, chosen as the best delegate at a MUN conference, and serving as the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, I can only imagine the myriad ways that community would have had a profound impact upon my goals, opportunities, and expectations for myself. The constant role modeling of girls like you leading and succeeding is hard to ignore, and it changes your mindset of what is possible for you. Instead, in my coed high school, only half of the student government leadership positions were available to me (half were always reserved for boys), only half of the sports teams were available to me (again, half of them were for boys), and there was never a year when the AP Physics class was entirely comprised of girls. There were many things that weren’t available to me (or that I saw as not being available to me) because I was a girl. 

So while my 13-year-old self saw schools for girls as places for students who weren’t “up to” the challenge of a coed school, I now get to witness the truth each day: schools for girls are for students who want ALL the opportunities, who are poised and ready to lead, and who immerse themselves in a community constructed around the empowerment and success of girls just like them. This is what it means when we say that Dana Hall School is academically ambitious, rich with opportunity and fiercely empowering.