Grounded in traditional college preparation, Midland is a leader in place-based and experiential education. Using our 2,860 acres as a home base, Midland’s curriculum offers a vibrant and challenging exploration of place, spanning environment, history, and culture. Growing our food, generating our electricity, and knowing where our water comes from prepares students to be informed citizens and active participants. Midland’s 4:1 student to faculty ratio and our work ethic ensures that every student is known, valued, and needed in this intentional community.
Midland School provides a unique college prep boarding school experience to a diverse student body. Through study and work, it teaches the value of a lifetime of learning, self-reliance, simplicity, a responsibility to the community and the environment, and a love for the outdoors.
Over 40 college representatives visit and recruit Midland students each fall. Midland students stand out from the pack because of enriched leadership and experiential opportunities supported by our setting, academic, and job programs. Recent graduates have enrolled at Colorado College, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Kenyon, Lewis and Clark, Pomona, Stanford, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, Wellesley, and Williams.
Since the 1930s, Midland students have lived their education. What does this mean? It means that learning goes beyond the four walls of a classroom. Some Midland classrooms do not even have four walls! Midland students study technology and install our solar arrays. We grow over half of the school food in our organic garden, and cattle graze on the ranch to provide beef faculty, and their families eat family style with students five nights a week each afternoon. A few students light fires to heat water for our afternoon showers, and everyone helps clean, wash dishes, and do the real work that makes a small community thrive.
We know that emphasizing our small community and the importance of each individual’s contribution to it allows us to grow more. We know that the best Midland students stretch and challenge themselves to extraordinary levels of leadership and scholarship. We know that academics are our priority but not our only priority. We know that our students are grounded in the practice while learning to solve a difficult math problem, write a persuasive essay, chop firewood, grow food, do the laundry, or repair a broken gutter. We know that young adults need a clear framework of increasing responsibility and freedom to develop their decision-making skills.
We educate one young adult at a time, on a small and personal scale. We ask many of our students in a supportive and highly personalized environment. Seniors lead the Jobs Program, which is more than teaching ninth graders how to push a broom. They learn and develop a sense of accountability and responsibility to others as they practice their real leadership and communication skills.
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