Woodside Priory School

What makes this school special

Six semesters of theology are a graduation requirement, alongside four years of English and three and a half years of history and social science
Every senior spends the spring on a Senior Project, finding a real need that matches something they care about and building an answer to it
About fifty students board, all of them in grades nine through twelve, on a campus that has taken boarders since it opened in 1957

Academics

Curriculum

Advanced Topics seminars in place of APs — 28 of them across ten departments, with AP Calculus BC the one AP course left

Advanced Placement

1 AP course

See the course list

World languages

French, Mandarin, Spanish

Signature programs

Senior Project (spring of 12th grade)
Four-year Advisory program
Office of Learning Support
Dorm Honors Program for 11th and 12th grade boarders
Benedictine Bridging & Belonging (DEIB)

UC admissions

In fall 2025, 52 students applied to the UC system from this school; 38 were admitted to at least one campus, and 8 enrolled.

See UC’s data

What these numbers can and can’t tell you

Athletics, arts & activities

Athletics · West Bay Athletic League

BaseballBasketballBeach VolleyballCross CountryFlag Football (girls)FootballLacrosseSoccerSwimmingTennisTrack & FieldVolleyball (girls)Water Polo (boys)

Arts

Visual ArtTheaterVocal MusicOrchestra

Clubs & activities · 80+

Model United NationsMock Trial ClubScience OlympiadBlack Student Union (BSU)DECARoboticsSpeech and Debate ClubQuiz BowlPhysics BowlPriory Neurodiversity ClubForeground Literary ReviewPanther Press

See all clubs

Life there

Tuition includes

Lunch

Food

Lunch included in tuition (hot entrée plus salad, sandwich, pasta and soup bars); breakfast and dinner included for boarders

Learning support

Office of Learning Support — accommodation plans for documented mild-to-moderate learning differences, ADHD, or psychiatric diagnoses, with executive-functioning and study-skill support

Applying

Key dates

Applications open: Early September
Application & aid due: Early January
Day decisions released: Mid-to-late March
Enrollment agreements due: Late March

The application

Priory hasn't posted its next cycle yet, so the dates here are the windows its last one ran on rather than published days. Boarding keeps its own earlier calendar, with an early round that closes in December and decides in early February, so a family weighing day against boarding is watching two sets of dates. Aid is need-based only, with no merit scholarships, and families reapply every year.

Application requirements

Application via Ravenna, with a fee the school doesn't publish
Parent Supplement and Student Supplement essays
Teacher recommendations, requested through Ravenna
Transcript release from the current school
A 1:1 interview

Testing

STAR testing on campus required

Testing explained

Sources

Woodside Priory School homepage — the school's own stats block: 427 students in grades 6-12, 13 students in an average class, a 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio, 63% of students identifying as students of color, and 20% receiving financial aid. Also the self-description, "an independent Catholic Benedictine college preparatory school."
Tuition & Fees — 2026-27 day tuition ($67,200), boarding ($97,800), the $600 Student Activity Fee, lunch included, and what is billed separately
Financial Aid — need-based aid only, annual reapplication, and the aid pool. The page says "over $5 million" for 2025-26 while the homepage stats block says ">$4M"; we publish only the 20% figure, which both agree on.
Apply to the Day Program — the four application steps, STAR testing on campus, the 1:1 interview, and the key dates. As of 2026-08-24 this page still carries the cycle that closed in March 2026, so the dates on this profile are windows rather than confirmed days.
Apply to the Boarding Program — the separate boarding calendar and its December early round
Mission & Philosophy — the 1957 founding by seven Hungarian Benedictine monks from Pannonhalma, and the five core values
Upper School Course Catalog — graduation requirements, and the department-by-department course lists behind it. Counted across all ten departments on 2026-08-24: 116 upper-school courses, of which 28 are Advanced Topics seminars and exactly one, AP Calculus BC, is AP. The History and Social Science listings date the switch, noting that Advanced Topics courses replaced AP European History and AP Micro/Macroeconomics for 2024-25.
Priory Academics — the Learning Competencies framing
Learning Support — the Office of Learning Support and its accommodation plans
Boarding — "about 50 students, from grades nine through twelve," boarding since 1957
Benedictine Bridging & Belonging — the DEIB program. This page says "nearly half our student population are students of color," against the homepage's 63% (source 1); we publish the homepage figure and have flagged the conflict for the school.
Arts — visual arts, vocal, orchestral and theater
Clubs & Activities — "over 80 options," and the full club roster
Athletics — the team list, read from the page's own team selector. Middle-school teams are excluded here, and the page does not say which season each team plays.
West Bay Athletic League — league membership, and Priory among its recent Foothill Division champions. WBAL splits divisions per sport and season rather than assigning a school to one.
College Matriculation — the school's matriculation page, covering 436 graduates from 2019 to 2024. The list of colleges itself does not load on the page, in a plain fetch or in a full browser render, so no college names are published here.
California Private School Affidavit 2025-26 | CDE — enrollment in grades 9-12 (318, filed by the school for 2025-26)
SamTrans routes — routes 85 and 87, which stop on Portola Road near the campus. Both are local Peninsula routes; neither runs to San Francisco, and there is no rail nearby and no school shuttle.
ACS WASC Directory of Schools — accredited, grades 6-12 (directory read 2026-08-24)

Details checked August 2026

Priory