A Message From Darrow‘s President - Simon Holzapfel

I was speaking recently with Amelia, a young alumna who had returned to the Mountainside for a visit in the opening week of school. With a beaming smile, she told me about her career at a nonprofit health service organization near her home in upstate New York.

As she talked enthusiastically about the many successes she has experienced since graduating from Darrow, she expressed gratitude for the confidence she gained, for the problem-solving skills she honed, and for the commitment to community that she cultivated here. Amelia’s story is not uncommon. I often hear similar stories from Darrow graduates who are using the knowledge, abilities, and values they acquired here to become their best selves.

For nine decades, Darrow has been transforming the lives of students like Amelia—students who want to be both engaged and challenged academically with an active curriculum. Our students also want college preparation that is relevant to their interests, and values them for who they are while also prompting them to discover who they can become. 

Each day at Darrow, in and out of the classroom, our students meet those challenges head on. They encounter irresistible invitations to learn in supportive, individualized settings and in small classes. They receive personalized attention from caring teachers, advisers, tutors, and coaches. They learn, work, play, and live with an exceptionally diverse community of people from around the nation and the world. And they come to appreciate the significance of sustainability, innovation, and industriousness through programs like Hands-to-Work, as did the Shakers who first built this community.

As you journey through our website you will have a chance to see for yourself how Darrow can help you become your best self. I invite you to visit our extraordinary campus and experience firsthand the remarkable place that is Darrow School.

Darrow School

Darrow School, founded in New Lebanon, New York, USA in 1932, is a top private boarding high school, adjacent to the State Forest Park. It has 26 buildings, a large number of activity sites, tennis courts, vast mountain climbing sites, cross-country snow skiing sites, ponds, pastures, orchards, marshes and rich forests. It has a beautiful and pleasant environment, with all teaching facilities. Darrow School is committed to exploring the potential abilities of students from different backgrounds, strengthening their expertise and motivating them to challenge the unknown areas and walk out of the comfort circle so that they can gradually build up long-term self-confidence in life and future learning. In order to achieve this goal, Darrow School makes use of the interdisciplinary education system of literature, art and science and combines the entrepreneurship and innovation projects to cultivate the students' ability in independent operation and social responsibility.