Taft School

The Taft School is a private coeducational school located in Watertown, Connecticut, United States. It enrolls approximately 600 students in grades 9–12.

History
The school was founded in 1890 as Mr. Taft's School (renamed to The Taft School in 1898) by Horace Dutton Taft, the brother of U.S. President William Howard Taft. Horace Taft's friend Sherman Day Thacher (the founder of California's Thacher School) inspired Taft to start his own boarding school. The school was initially headquartered in Pelham Manor, New York, but moved to Watertown, Connecticut in 1893.

Along with Lawrenceville, Groton, Milton, and its athletic rival Hotchkiss, Taft was one of the first New England schools founded during the great boom in boarding schools at the turn of the twentieth century. In the school's first generation, around half of the student body came from Connecticut and New York. However, Horace Taft came from a famous Ohio political family, and the school developed a reputation for preparing children of the Midwestern gentry for Yale's entrance examinations.

The school's admission rate was 16% in 2023.

In 2015, Business Insider ranked Taft the 14th-most 'elite' boarding school in the US, based on a formula that equally weighted financial endowment, average SAT scores, and acceptance rate.

Student body
In the 2023–24 school year, Taft enrolled 580 students in grades 9–12, including 100 freshmen (in academy jargon, "lower mids"), 145 sophomores ("mids"), 155 juniors ("upper mids"), and 180 seniors ("seniors").

That year, 82% of the student body lived on campus. 45% of students identified as people of color and 18% came from abroad. 35% of students were on financial aid; 7.6% were on full scholarships; and 55% had previously attended public schools.

Campus
Taft is located on the grounds of a former hotel in Watertown, Connecticut; the school demolished the original hotel building in 1930. The Watertown campus began with six acres and has since grown to 226 acres. In 2018, Architectural Digest named Taft the most beautiful private high school campus in Connecticut.

The school owns several homes within the Watertown Center Historic District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, Taft's core campus is not part of the historic district.

Tuition and financial aid
In the 2023–24 school year, Taft charged boarding students $72,000 and day students $53,500, of which financial aid covered, on average, $58,250 for boarders and $34,250 for day students. 35% of the student body received financial aid; 195 of those students (33.6% of the school) were U.S. citizens.

Taft commits to meet 100% of an admitted U.S. citizen student's demonstrated financial need, "according to [its] financial aid methodology." In the 2023–24 school year, after financial aid, boarders with family incomes under $100,000 paid an average of $700, and boarders with family incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 paid an average of $9,200. The school does not disclose income or financial aid statistics for its international students.

Endowment and expenses
Taft's financial endowment stood at $299.6 million as of June 30, 2023. In its Internal Revenue Service filings for the 2021–22 school year, Taft reported total assets of $447.9 million, net assets of $382.3 million, investment holdings of $283.8 million, and cash holdings of $24.1 million. Taft also reported $49.2 million in program service expenses and $10.4 million in grants (primarily student financial aid).

Athletics
Taft offers seventeen varsity sports and an intramural equestrian program. The school's athletic facilities include an 18-hole golf course, 16 tennis courts (four indoor), eight squash courts, two field houses, two tracks (one indoor, one outdoor), two ice hockey rinks (one Olympic-sized and one NHL-sized), and more than 10 playing fields.

Taft and its athletic rival Hotchkiss compete in the Founders League, a group of prep schools mostly located in Connecticut. Taft's athletic teams are known as the Rhinos (or the "Big Red Rhinos"), and its school colors are Yale blue and Harvard crimson.