Emma Willard School is a place to discover what it means to be your best self. We commend you on taking the initiative to seek out the perfect school for you. By doing so, you already show that you are ready for something more than the high school experience.
Madame Emma Hart Willard founded her school on the basis of providing girls with a first-class education that challenged, inspired, and enabled them to serve and shape their worlds.
More than 200 years later, Emma Willard School proudly continues to carry on this mission.
Emma Willard School's curriculum allows girls to focus their future aspirations, and equips them with the interdisciplinary knowledge competitive colleges are looking for.
Our academic program offers more than 140 courses, including Advanced Placement options, where girls engage in discourse that brings context to high-level concepts and understanding of the world we live in. Personalized study programs enable girls to dive deep into a topic or field of their choosing, and gain hands-on experience.
Education at Emma isn’t limited to the classroom—it’s woven into the fabric of our community. With girls from around the world and across the United States, and faculty and staff with a wide breadth of life experiences, you will broaden your perspective the moment you walk onto campus.
Bonds created between Emma Girls in the residence and dining halls, while practicing for an athletics match or arts performance, at one of our many cherished traditions, and all the little moments in between, define many girls’ Emma experience.
In response to a recent "Rao Rumbles" — the anonymous comment or question box outside Jenny Rao's office — we followed Ms. Rao around with a camera to answer a student's great question about what fills a "typical day" for our Head of School!
At the office: Ms. Rao’s cozy office in Slocum, where she checks in for the day’s schedule and preps for her upcoming meetings with students, staff, and faculty.
2-3.) Morning Reports: Held in the Chapel on this day because Kiggins, the usual location, was being used for the winter play, Morning Reports boasted presentations from various student groups, remarks from Ms. Rao, and even a visit from alumna and trustee Linda Gill Anderson ’77.
4.) School Leadership: A meeting in the Head of School's office between Ms. Rao and recently appointed Board of Trustees member Linda Gill Anderson '77, who was able to visit the Emma Willard School campus for the first time since COVID began.
5.) Library Leadership: Stopping outside Kellas Dining Hall, Ms. Rao took a moment to peruse the selections put together by the Library Leadership Committee (a group of student leaders dedicated to making the library a safe, fun, and educational space for the Emma community) in anticipation of ample reading time over spring break.
A current read from Ms. Rao’s own bookshelf: Inheritance by Dani Shapiro
6-7.) Many Meetings: Ms. Rao meets with Dean of Students and Wellbeing Shelley Maher, Head of Institutional Equity and Inclusion Christine Gilmore, and Interim Assistant Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Gemma Halfi.
5-6.) Heading Home: Ms. Rao heads home across campus, where she and her family spend a lot (every night!) of time together “talking about the world and travel, and what it means to be part of a global community.” Here, Ms. Rao and Santiago (12) take a photo in front of their world map, and she works on practicing ‘ea’ words before a spelling test for Ivan (8).
7.) Working on the Wordle: Every night Ms. Rao and her husband, Arjun, work on the daily Wordle with input from the boys (Santiago pictured here).
Thank you for the glimpse into just one of your days, Ms. Rao!
Honoring its founder’s vision, Emma Willard School proudly fosters in each young woman a love of learning, the habits of an intellectual life, and the character, moral strength, and qualities of leadership to serve and shape her world.
Welcome to Emma Willard School, a private day and boarding high school for girls in Troy, NY, and a leader in girls' education for over 200 years.
PLEASE NOTE: All visitors to campus must check in with Campus Safety, which can be found at the red flag entrance to Sage Hall (Pawling Ave. entrance).