The Thacher School, a coeducational boarding high school perched at the Topatopa Mountains foot in Ojai, California, is anything but typical. Here, students encounter a combination they will not find anywhere else: demanding academics, tough character-building challenges, and a healthy, authentic community culture that supports them every step of the way. It is how Thacher succeeds in shaping resilient, compassionate, and ambitious young men and women who are prepared to take on the challenges of today's world. We invite you to dive in and see for yourself what makes Thacher, Thacher.
At Thacher, some of our best classrooms are not classrooms. Our beautiful, rugged 427-acre campus, with its steeply winding trails and expansive mountain views, provides a place like no other to learn, explore, and call home. We also regularly stretch the boundaries of our learning environment, taking off from our idyllic campus for weeklong backcountry trips in the High Sierra and Channel Islands, service projects in surrounding communities, cultural adventures in nearby Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, and faculty-lead immersion experiences in places like China, Africa, and Cuba.
Teaching young people "the art of living for their own greatest good and the good of their fellow citizens" has always been at the heart of a Thacher education. Each successive year, students take on greater responsibility and independence. They start by caring for a horse freshman year and leading backcountry trips, captain teams, and head dorm life as senior prefects. They live by Thacher's Honor Code and learn to do the right thing even when no one is watching. Graduates come away knowing how to lead with confidence, compassion, and integrity—and what it takes to work for the benefit of the greater community.
The philosophy of The Thacher School is rooted in the wisdom and work of its founder, Sherman Day Thacher, who embraced the extraordinary natural venue of his School and sought above all else to train his students "in the art of living for their own greatest good and the good of their fellow citizens." He believed the most worthwhile education combined an active academic life with rugged outdoor activities that engendered self-reliance, concern for others, and fidelity to four principles: honor, fairness, kindness, and truth.
Thacher trains young men and women in the art of living for their own greatest good and the greatest good of their fellow citizens in a diverse and changing world. To that end, the School augments its highly challenging academic program with profound lessons learned from the care of a horse, regular chores around the School, teamwork on playing fields, outstanding instruction in the arts, the give and take of everyday life with schoolmates and teachers, and adventures shared in the wilderness. The aim is to inspire and encourage hard work, integrity, self-reliance, a lifelong love of learning and truth, self-knowledge, and a deep concern for the world we live in.
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