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St. George's School
Motto	Sapientia Utriusque Vitae Lumen
Established	1896
Type	Private coeducational secondary, boarding
Affiliation	Episcopalian
Headmaster	Eric F. Peterson
Students	345
Grades	9–12
Location	Middletown, Rhode Island, USA
Campus	Suburban
Mascot	Dragon
Website	www.stgeorges.edu

St. George's School is a private, Episcopal, coeducational boarding school in Middletown (next to Newport), Rhode Island. The school was founded in 1896 by the Rev. John Byron Diman, who was a member of a prominent Rhode Island family. It sits on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and is known for having an extremely beautiful campus. It is a member of the Independent School League. The school is mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic first novel, This Side of Paradise.

Contents 1 Mission Statement 2 The Hilltop 3 Daily life 3.1 Traditions 3.2 Sports 3.3 The Red & White 4 School Profile 5 Trivia 6 Notable Faculty 7 Notable Alumni 8 External links

In 1896, the Rev. John Byron Diman, founder of St. George's School, wrote in his “Purposes of the School” that:

"The specific objectives of St. George's are to give its students the opportunity of developing to the fullest extent possible the particular gifts that are theirs and to encourage in them the desire to do so. Their immediate job after leaving School is to handle successfully the demands of college; later it is hoped that their lives will be ones of constructive service to the world and to God.”

The school's suburban campus is familiarly known as "The Hilltop", as it is located on the top of the highest hill on Aquidenick Island. The campus is also known for its magnificent view of First, Second, and Third Beach- which it used to own in the early twentieth century.

There are 11 dorms, five boys' and six girls', which each house between 6 and 40 students. 20 House, Astor, Auchincloss, Buell, and Zane all house the girls. Arden, Diman, Diman North, East, and Wheeler host the males.

Classes are held in three buildings: language, humanities, history, and mathematics classes meet in the Memorial Schoolhouse; science classes in the DuPont Science Building; the arts classes in the Drury/Grosvenor Center for the Arts. The Memorial Schoolhouse, the Brown Center and Old School form a quadrangle, known as the "Dragon Quad".

The Nathaniel Hill Library houses some 27,000 volumes, a reference section of 2,500 stacks, and 150 periodicals. Perhaps the focal point of the campus is the Chapel. Constructed in 1928, the Chapel is a classic Gothic cathedral.

Like all private schools in the ISL, St. George's operates on a six-day school week, meaning that classes meet on Saturday. Wednesdays and Saturdays, however, are half-days, with athletic games in the afternoons.

St. George's conducts the majority of its classes (with the exception of science and math classes) using the Harkness method, which encourages discussion between students and the teacher, and between students. The average class size according to the School's website is 10-12 students.

Rather than offering a Physical Education class, St. George's requires all its students to play sports for all six terms of their Third and Fourth Form years, and for any three terms during their Fifth and Sixth Form years. These sports range from a New England-champion hockey team to thirds lacrosse team.

Twice a week, students attend Chapel. Once a week, Chapel requires formal attire, and there is either a communion or morning prayer service according to the school's Episcopalian tradition. The other time, a senior or faculty member speaks to the school community, giving a Chapel Talk.

In the evenings, meetings are held for clubs and activities including music ensembles like the Brass Ensemble and Choir, a cappella groups (the all-female Snapdragons, and the all-male Hilltoppers), the Debate Team, and other extracurriculars.

• Zoo Day: A raucous school assembly occurring on Halloween, it was mockingly run by the Seniors posing as the faculty, and vice-versa. It was banned in 2005 after the Senior class violated certain faculty members' feelings. It is now replaced by the more kid-friendly Halloween Spooktacular and Senior Crypt Dance.

• Pie Race: A 2.3-mile pie race in which most students of the school participate in by wearing outrageous costumes or running in alternative manners.

• Winter Formal: The 2006 Winter Formal, an alternative version of prom, occurred at Belmont Castle in Newport, Rhode Island, and was played by a deejay.

• Christmas Festival: A tradition that has existed almost since the inception of the school, it occurs on the last day before Christmas Vacation. After the Chapel service, the students are ushered into King Hall to sing carols. At one time, Father Christmas also handed out joke gifts to unsuspecting members of the school community, but that was also banned in 2005 and replaced with the Very Christmas Game Show.

• V Form Ski Weekend: The only official class trip at St. George's School, every January, for a long 3-day weekend, the Juniors travel to a selected ski resort and spend the weekend in hotel rooms and skiing/snowboarding. 2006's destination was the Rivergreen Resort at Loon Mountain, NH.

• Casino Night: Once a year, on a Saturday night, the Campus Center Great Room is transformed into a casino replete with poker and blackjack tables, craps, and even the famous wheel of fortune. Dress for this event is necessarily outrageous.

• Spring Dance Weekend: A relatively new tradition, in which bands come to play at the St. George's campus over the weekend in various locations, such as the Quad, the Great Room, and King Hall. The student rock guild also performs on this weekend.

• Prize Day: The final day for the seniors as they graduate from St. George's School.

• Fall: Cross country running and soccer for both boys and girls, football for boys, and field hockey for girls.

• Winter: Squash, basketball, swimming, and hockey for both boys and girls.

• Spring: Lacrosse, tennis, track & field, and sailing for both boys and girls, baseball for boys and softball for girls.

The school is a member of the Independent School League (ISL) and the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC). St. George's traditional athletic rival is Middlesex School.

Recent Championships:

• Boys' Hockey, 2005 NEPSAC Div. II Champions
• Girls' Cross-Country, 2005 NEPSTA Div. III Champions
• Co-ed Sailing NESSA Team Racing Champions 2006

In recent years, St. George's hockey and sailing programs have been especially successful with the boys hockey team winning New Englands and the sailing team placing third in the country at Nationals multiple times.

St. George's is often considered the best looking school in the ISL, both because of its oceanside campus and students. Its nickname among students is "St. Gorgeous."

The Red & White is the newspaper of the St. George's School community. A student run institution, it prints nine times a year on a monthly basis. The paper is a half tabloid, prints in black and white, and runs advertisements from local businesses. The paper is available for free to students and faculty, and, at a nominal fee, any member of the school's extended community can subscribe.

Founded in 1906, its goals were "to amuse" students and to "maintain [a] high standard" of journalism. The second longest existing publication in the school (The Dragon, the school's literary magazine is bestowed with that honor.), it has printed since its inception, with the exception of a ten year period between World War I and World War II.

Current Editor-in-Chief of The Red & White is Alexandra Cahill '07.

The Editions of 2006-2007
October 6 Edition:[1]
October 27 Edition:[2]
November 7 Edition: [3]

The Editions of 2005-2006
February 10 Edition: [4]
March 3 Edition: [5]
April 21 Edition:[6]
May 2, Centennial Edition: [7]
May 29, Prize Day Edition: [8]

Past Editors

• 2005-2006- Patrick Ehart '46 (Editor-in-Chief), and Sam Willie '06 (Assistant Editor-in-Chief)
• 2004-2005- Alexandra Kalita '05 (Editor-in-Chief), and Patrick Ehart '06 (Assistant Editor-in-Chief)

Years Unkown- William Buell, Andrew Botsford, Matthew Rymzo.

• School Endowment: $102 million
• Average SSAT percentile range: 85%
• Acceptance Rate: 32%

• Featured in The Official Preppy Handbook by Lisa Birnbach
• The Education of Charlie Banks (2007), co-starring Jesse Eisenberg and Eva Amurri, and directed by Fred Durst, was filmed on the campus of St. George's. The establishing shots of the Old School building, King Hall, and the Chapel were used to represent Vassar College, and the motion picture also filmed at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

• Jay Doolittle, writer, husband of photographer June Doolittle
• Patricia Lothrop, reviewer for the School Library Journal

• Vincent Astor, member of the prominent Astor family
• John Jacob Astor VI, member of the prominent Astor family
• John Jacob Astor V
• Billy Bush, Access Hollywood Anchor
• Prescott Bush, artillery Captain WWI, U.S. Senator from Connecticut 1953-1963, father of President George H.W. Bush
• Tucker Carlson, writer and host of Tucker on MSNBC; formerly with CNN
• Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau
• Howard Dean, longest-serving Vermont Governor 1991-2003, Presidential Candidate 2004, Chairman DNC 2005-
• Ogden Nash, famous American poet
• Claiborne Pell, longest-serving Rhode Island Senator (in office 1961-1997)
• William Henry Vanderbilt III, Governor of Rhode Island, philanthropist
• Albert W. Merck, of the Merck pharmaceutical family
• Julie Bowen, Actress
• Robert David Lion Gardiner, the last heir to bear the name of the family that has owned Gardiner's Island
• Roger W. Straus Jr, was co-founder of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, a New York book publishing company
• Whitney Tower, longtime horse racing journalist and former chairman of the National Racing Museum and Hall of Fame
• John Nicholas Brown
• John T. Dorrance Jr, chairman of the Campbell Soup Company
• Andrew Botsford, Associate Editor and Arts Editor for The Southampton Press
• Elky Wetherill, former 15-year president of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange
• Harry Werksman, writer-producer for the third season of [[Grey's Anatomy]]
• Ian Toll, author of Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy
• Diane Nelson, president of Warner Premiere

Members of the Independent School League, New England

Belmont Hill School | Buckingham Browne & Nichols | Brooks School | The Governor's Academy | Groton School | Lawrence Academy at Groton | Middlesex School | Milton Academy | Noble and Greenough School | Rivers School | Roxbury Latin School | St. George's School | St. Mark's School | St. Paul's School | St. Sebastian's School | Thayer Academy

• St. George's School website