Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

An equitable student experience at Marlborough begins with admissions, first in our recruitment, and carries through every step of our application and enrollment process.

This year, we made the important decision to eliminate one step in that process that we feel has historically contributed to inequity on multiple levels. Since the 2020-2021 school year, Marlborough has not accepted the ISEE or SSAT standardized tests for admissions. For more information about this decision, please click here.

Learn more about how we approach student recruitment and welcoming prospective families into our community below, and visit the Admissions section of our website for more detail on the process. 

True excellence in education means providing a program that enables all students to see themselves reflected in their curriculum. By embedding intellectual inquiry related to race, ethnicity, class, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation throughout, we aim to place all students’ voices at the heart of our work. In the classroom, this applies not only to the information we teach, but how we teach it, as well as how we ground instruction and grading practices through the lens of equity.

As part of the school’s efforts to provide assessments and feedback that is both accurate and bias-resistant, Marlborough has been researching methods to adopt a more mathematically accurate grading scale across the curriculum. To that end, we have a group of early-adopter teachers exploring and implementing mastery-based educational practices within their classrooms. These practices include the use of clearly articulated learning targets and success criteria, grading practices that focus on the level of student understanding, rather than behavior, and encouraging students to take part in a relearning-reassessment cycle to optimize their mastery of course material.

Explore our full Course of Study, and learn more about our new and ongoing efforts in these subject areas here:

As a school committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for students to learn and lead, we must acknowledge the harm, both within and outside our community, that our students in marginalized groups—including BIPOC, gender non-conforming, and those from low socio-economic families —experience, and support them by providing all students with the tools to address those events, effective and safe avenues for sharing their experiences, and a clear and fair process for deciding, implementing, and communicating the consequences of interpersonal racism in our community.

Learn more about how we are supporting our students in this realm:

Established in 1889, Marlborough has continued to offer unparalleled educational opportunities for girls, empowering them to live lives of purpose. As a premier educational institution, Marlborough inspires our students to cultivate critical and creative thinking skills, equipping each girl to become an agent of change. Aligned with our mission and long-standing history, Marlborough maintains its identity as a girls' school. 

We recognize adolescence as a time of transformative self-discovery, a developmentally appropriate period for the exploration of many facets of identity, including gender. Marlborough remains committed to nurturing all aspects of our students' identities while upholding our girl-centered education. Current students who no longer identify as girls are welcome at Marlborough as long as they remain mission-aligned. As with any student, regardless of gender identity, Marlborough will work compassionately and on a case-by-case basis with each family to determine whether our school offers the best community and learning environment in which the student can thrive. 

This statement reflects nearly a decade of thoughtful conversation involving Marlborough trustees, administration, and experts in the fields of psychology and child development. We remain dedicated to setting academic standards as we have done since 1889, positioned at the forefront of an ever-evolving educational landscape. We continue to innovate while embracing Marlborough’s mission to serve girls and create a world in which equity leads education. 

We strive to implement practices that reflect our commitment to recruiting, retaining, and developing exceptional and innovative faculty and staff who reflect the rich history and culture of our city and who are committed to the entire student experience. 

Learn more about the new and ongoing ways we find, support, and empower our community of educators: