The Germantown Union School was formed on December 6, 1759 for the benefit of educating Germantown’s local children. Standing now as the oldest continuous non-sectarian independent day school in the United States, Germantown Academy in Fort Washington is the pre-eminent school in the greater Philadelphia area.

Led since 1990 by Head of School James W. Connor 1760, Germantown Academy welcomes more than 1,000 students and 250 faculty and staff to campus each day.  The Board of Trustees took into account GA's 120-acre campus, our most distinguishing attribute, when they announced in May 2008 to move ahead with an exciting multi-phase Campus Master Plan.  This Plan revolves around the use of our unique campus.  Its main goals are to:

• be flexible in design and space for the Middle and Upper School students and faculty that inhabit those areas;
• provide a facility that accommodates the current level of programming;
  
• improve opportunities to continue and expand interpersonal relationships between students and their peers, and students and the faculty;
• reconnect to the natural environment;
• integrate sustainable design where appropriate.
  

Construction began on June 11, 2010 on Phase I of the Campus Master Plan.  The Middle and Upper Schools buildings will be completed by September 2011, and the Outdoor Athletics Complex and Nature Preserve will be completed by September 2010. This is an extraordinarily exciting time for our school. 

GA’s faculty is rich with talent and experience. One hundred and twenty-three strong, 57 percent of our full-time faculty hold masters or doctorate degrees and the average length of employment of current faculty is 17 years. Students in grades Pre-Kindergarten through 12 come to GA from more than 90 towns and cities in Montgomery, Philadelphia, Bucks and Chester counties. Germantown Academy boasts a school-wide student:faculty ratio average of 8:1.

Typically the Admission Office receives two to four applications for each available space. Applicants who are able to manage our curriculum successfully have typically scored above the 90th percentile (national norm) on tests of intelligence and academic aptitude. 

It should come as no surprise then that Germantown Academy is nationally recognized in all areas of education.  It consistently competes for championships in the highly competitive Inter-Ac League, which is the country's oldest inter-scholastic athletic conference.  The athletic program boasts of  Olympic-level swimmers, national Prep wrestling champions, numerous nationally ranked girls and boys sports teams, and graduates who have played in professional baseball, basketball and hockey leagues.  Students from all areas of the arts program, from theatre to photography, regularly achieve local and national recognition, and graduates are currently appearing on stage on Broadway and in nationally-released films.  Graduates of GA every year earn admission into the most highly selective U.S. colleges and universities, but the school is most proud of the emphasis it places on finding the right schools for its variety of students, whether those schools are specialized schools in the arts or universities in other countries.

Our tuition is comparable with other Independent Schools of our size and caliber in the area.  Click here to see the tuition rates for 2010-2011.  Financial aid is available for those families who qualify for financial assistance. Recipients must apply on an annual basis and show clear financial need. Annually, $3,500,000 in financial aid is awarded to those who qualify. GA's thriving Annual Giving program assists in closing the gap between tuition and the actual cost of educating each student.

One hundred percent of GA graduates attend college on an annual basis. On a daily basis, GA offers 19 Advanced Placement courses, ranging from English and Spanish to Statistics and Physics. Click here to see the matriculation list of colleges for the past five years.