Miss Porter's School (MPS) is a private boarding and day college-preparatory school for girls founded in 1843 in Farmington, Connecticut. The school draws students from many of the 50 U.S. states, as well as from abroad.
The school's founder, Sarah Porter, insisted on a curriculum which included chemistry, physiology, botany, geology, and astronomy in addition to the more traditional subjects taught in girls' schools. In 1943, Miss Porter's was incorporated as a nonprofit institution and emphasized its purpose as a college preparatory school rather than a finishing school. Also that year, the school ended the tradition of hiring heads of school from the Porter family. The school continued to modernize throughout the 20th century. In July 2008, Katherine Windsor became the head of school. In 2017, the school joined the Mastery Transcript Consortium.
In the 2025–2026 academic year, boarding students comprised 65% of the student body. Students were from 28 countries; of U.S. students, 23 states were represented. The average class size was 12 students.
History
Sarah Porter and early years (1843–1884)
Miss Porter's School was established in 1843 by education reformer Sarah Porter in her hometown of Farmington as a way to become financially independent. However, Porter "earned so little that her students had to board in her parents' home" and in 1845, she moved to Buffalo to run another school. She reopened her school in Farmington in 1847. In the book Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls' Schools, Lana DeBare states that Miss Porter's School was established before women's colleges became widespread and before finishing schools emerged as a substitute for higher education. Darlene Reeve (née Stevens), who attended the school in the 1870s, in a retrospective wrote that "in the East, people used to say: 'Send your girls to Miss Porter or to College'". The school's curriculum was influenced by Yale University; Porter had studied privately at Yale and her brother, Noah Porter, was President of Yale College from 1871 to 1886. The school initially did not issue diplomas; Porter instead gave the students a recommendation.
Porter was insistent that the curriculum extend beyond the traditional subjects taught in girls' schools to include both a broad liberal arts education, such as arithmetic, algebra, English literature, French, history, and classical languages, and natural sciences including chemistry, physiology, botany, geology, astronomy, and zoology; advanced students could also study subjects such as Greek, Latin, logic, mental and moral philosophy, and German. She "rejected academic requirements, examinations, and grades; all classes and subjects were electives". Porter's educational philosophy of "culture" defined learning as a secular form of spiritual and intellectual growth intended to foster a lifetime of self-development through the study of nature and the liberal arts. This approach aimed to prepare women for influential roles within the domestic sphere. Porter opposed women's colleges and "discouraged her students from attending college". Academic Louise Stevenson explained that Porter hired "distinguished" male academics as teachers and invited lecturers from Hartford and New Haven; however, for female teachers, Porter looked for those "who exemplified true piety" rather than academics. She also did not hire women who were college-educated – in a 1883 letter, Porter wrote "I do not want one college trained woman—they are narrow, arrogant—and do not infuse the spirit which I want".
Historian Barbara Sicherman wrote that "despite a strong intellectual bent, Miss Porter–a devout Congregationalist–encouraged the acquisition of Christian character, liberal culture, and disciplined womanhood rather than learning for its own sake or preparation for a career. [...] But if the school did not promote intellectual rigor, neither did it tolerate snobbishness or frivolity". Academic Andrea Hamilton, comparing early Miss Porter's to Bryn Mawr School, stated Miss Porter's had many "'finishing school' characteristics" and its founder "devoted her school to developing culture and character in its students". Edith Hamilton, who attended Miss Porter's for three years starting in 1883, criticized the quality of her education at the school. Her sister Alice Hamilton stated that, while she loved the school, "some of the teaching we received was the world's worst". Other students praised their time at Farmington, including their tutelage under Porter. Reeve wrote that Porter's "classes were a revelation of her cultural background and exhaustless fund of information on every subject". Stevenson wrote that the "cultural education" at Miss Porter's "grew from reaction to evangelical activism" and some students, such as Alice Hamilton, "moved from lessons of culture to social reform activities typical of the late nineteenth century". She argued that a "significant number" of alumnae remained unmarried which "suggests the lessons of culture were not invariably persuasive" and "some students concluded that usefulness might lie outside of marriage and homelife".
Leadership transitions and Keep family stewardship (1884–1943)
In 1884, Sarah Porter hired her former student, Mary Elizabeth Dunning Dow, with whom she began to share more of her duties as head of school. In 1885, Dow succeeded the school's founder after Porter retired from daily oversight. Academic Deborah Smith wrote that "Porter's name remained a marketable commodity and continued to appear in printed announcements about school matters, which referred to management as 'Miss Porter and Mrs. Dow'". Historian Victoria Houseman wrote that during Edith Hamilton's time at the school in the late 1880s, while Dow was managing it, "Porter's powerful personality still set the tone of the school".
Sarah Porter died in 1900; Dow remained as the head of school. A 1903 editorial in The Independent stated that "the distinctive life of the school has continued unbroken under" Dow and opined that Miss Porter's School as an institution was increasingly seen as "standing apart" and "sufficient unto itself", largely unconcerned with the "requirements of a modern education". While acknowledging that some graduates might be lacking by "certain standards", it argued that they gained what "mere standards can never give": "ideals of the meaning of life", cultural appreciation, refinement, and "love for the place and the traditions".
Porter's will named her nephew, Robert Porter Keep, as executor of her estate, of which the school was the most valuable asset. Dow's compensation for her position as sole head of school was also specified in the will. As executor, Robert Keep began extensive repairs and renovations to the school. While Dow continued to receive a salary as stipulated in Porter's will, she became convinced that Keep, in diverting the school's income to pay for construction, was enriching his inheritance with funds that were rightfully hers. The conflict escalated and culminated in Dow's resignation in 1903. When Dow moved to Briarcliff, New York and founded Mrs. Dow's School for Girls, all but three of Miss Porter's teachers went with her; as many as 140 students also switched schools. On the split between Keep and Dow, The Independent commented "how different might have been the story had Miss Porter realized that her school had grown into an institution" and left control of the school to a group of trustees instead of to an individual.
Robert Keep announced in July 1903 that the school would reopen in October 1903 with his wife, Elizabeth Vashti Hale Keep, as head of school, 11 teachers, and between five and 16 students in attendance. After Keep died on July 3, 1904, Elizabeth Keep continued to work there. One of her many legacies was a kindergarten for children of employees. Also in 1904, the Keeps rejected an offer on the school by former students.
Between 1910 and 1916, college preparation was "briefly available". The Outlook reported that Miss Porter's under Elizabeth Keep attained "a somewhat unusual position among secondary schools for girls. Its beautiful physical situation, its methods, its grouping of the girls in separate houses about a central building, gave it some of the atmosphere and influence of a kind of college midway between the preparatory school and the more elaborate institutions of training for women". By 1917, Miss Porter's issued "diplomas for those who earned credits beyond those required for high school graduation". When Elizabeth Keep died in 1917, leadership of the school passed to her stepson, Robert Porter Keep, Jr., a German teacher at Phillips Academy. From 1917 until the school's centennial celebrations in 1943, he and his wife remained heads of school at Miss Porter's.
Modernization and growth (1943–2000) The school was incorporated as a nonprofit institution in 1943, emphasizing its purpose as a college preparatory school rather than a finishing school. The New York Times stated that the school's "big changeover, from the epitome of the finishing school to strict college preparatory, came in the mid‐1940's" and of the finishing schools which took that leap, "Miss Porter's had to jump what was probably the farthest distance". Also in 1943, the school ended the tradition of hiring heads of school from the Porter family, instead selecting Ward Lamb Johnson and his wife Katharine. Johnson had been the headmaster of the Lawrence School for 22 years when he and his wife joined the Farmington community in 1943. He retired 11 years later. During their tenure, Leila Dilworth Jones '44 Memorial Library was opened. They also increased faculty housing.
Mary Norris (née Frick) French and her husband Hollis Stratton French served as co-principals of the school from 1954 to 1966.
In 1966, then headmaster of the Buffalo Seminary Richard W. Davis was selected to be headmaster at Miss Porter's. He was to free the school of its "reputation of being too restrictive and too conservative." His appointment marked the first time in a half-century that the school would be directed by one person instead of a couple. Reflecting on his tenure at the school, Davis recalled, "We no longer required that girls wear head coverings in bad weather. We allowed pants to be worn, neat ones, to classes, but not to the dining room. We gradually dropped the requirement that all meals were 'sit-down', with assigned seating. The changes did not come all at once, yet each one brought some dissent. Certain faculty members felt that standards were slipping."
Having arrived in Farmington in 1967, also from the Buffalo Seminary (like Davis), Warren 'Skip' Hance quickly took on administrative roles in addition to teaching history. First he was department chair and then director of development. There followed the appointment to be assistant headmaster, and then to be the ninth head of Miss Porter's School.
Immediately prior to her service as Miss Porter's head of school, Rachel Phillips Belash had been vice president at First National Bank of Boston. – via A native of Wales, an accomplished cellist, and holding a PhD in Spanish literature, Belash was inaugurated 10th head of Miss Porter's School for a term beginning in 1983. Her appointment came during a period when the number of headmistresses at independent schools was declining, and it was considered "a welcome departure" from that trend. Belash was devoted to renewing single-sex education for girls and spoke widely on the topic, as well as writing for The New York Times. One report called her a "visionary".