The Thacher School

The Thacher School, founded in 1889, is located in Ojai, California, on 427 acres, a 90-minute drive from Los Angeles. With a 93% boarding student ratio, it is California's oldest co-educational boarding school.

Thacher School is distinguished by its equestrian and outdoor programs. The school has approximately 120 horses and abundant equestrian resources. However, the school's Horse Program is not just about learning riding techniques; students also bear full responsibility for caring for the horses. They need to learn not only how to communicate and cooperate with horses but also how to attend to their daily needs. The school also has an astronomy research program where students collaborate with teams from Harvard University, Boston University, UC Santa Cruz, and Las Cumbres Observatory to participate in astrophysical research. Thacher School's observatory is a top-tier research-grade advanced facility, an exceptional setup rarely found in other American high schools.

As part of its outdoor activities, in addition to week-long trips each fall and spring, students are encouraged to participate in weekend camping in the local mountains, including backpacking, rock climbing, cycling, sailing, horse camping, canyon exploration, backcountry skiing, and kayaking.

Principal Zhan's Comments: In recent years, the school has undergone significant changes, updating many architectural facilities and courses. From this visit, it's clear that the school's culture and academics are exceptionally strong, and they are also actively working to ensure students' social environment and mental health. Students who deeply understand and are a good match for Thacher are highly favored by admissions officers.
Regarding cultural heritage: When students enroll in 9th grade, they adopt a horse. While learning to care for the horse, they also learn horsemanship and related knowledge. Children who are interested can participate in equestrian activities for all four years of high school. This tradition not only helps children get accustomed to life in a new environment but also fosters a sense of responsibility.
Regarding academic development: The school's high-quality faculty and curriculum are well-known to US colleges. There's no need for AP courses to demonstrate students' academic abilities, so Thacher's honors and advanced courses have completely replaced AP courses.
Regarding community building: 90% of Thacher students (both local and international) live on campus. The school arranges outdoor activities for each grade every spring and fall to promote student relationships and integration.
Regarding emotional support: During the pandemic, the school newly built a medical center, and the original infirmary was completely converted into a psychological counseling room, offering psychological counseling and silent yoga sessions at any time.

The Thacher School is located 85 kilometers west of Los Angeles, California, USA. Since there are relatively few schools in California, The Thacher School is a top-tier institution in the state. It boasts an excellent academic program, offering rigorous college preparatory courses for academically gifted students. Founded in 1889, The Thacher School is a co-educational boarding school with over a century of history. The campus spans a spacious 427 acres. Its 240 students come from 27 states across the US and 9 countries worldwide.

Notably, The Thacher School offers an incredibly rich equestrian program, with approximately 120 horses and abundant resources related to horsemanship. This program accompanies students throughout their entire high school career, come rain or shine. On the second day of new students' arrival on campus, the school sends them to Santa Cruz Island for a week-long orientation activity with their class and dorm leaders. This is also why, every autumn and spring, and during many weekend trips in between, students and faculty pack their bags and head to wilderness trails inside and outside California for additional day trips. Los Padres National Forest is right at the school's back door, and other wilderness areas are also close by, making outdoor activities such as rock climbing, winter camping, sea and river kayaking readily available.

Thatcher High School has very high academic demands, and students' lives here are largely filled with courses, homework, and clubs. The school offers a rich curriculum, covering multiple fields such as art, sports, science, and humanities, along with various societies and activities to meet students' diverse interests and needs. The school also places great emphasis on cultivating students' leadership skills and teamwork spirit, encouraging them through various channels to participate in different activities, develop their strengths and potential. The school is extremely focused on developing and training leadership, encouraging students to combine learning with practice.
Furthermore, Thatcher High School has a very low student-to-teacher ratio of only 1:5, which allows students to receive more attention and guidance, and better promotes their learning and growth. The school also provides various scholarships and financial aid to help students in need complete their studies.

9. Senior Exhibition Program: Students are expected not only to collect facts but also to engage in thoughtful and reasoned analysis of their work. One-on-one meetings with advisors throughout the process provide students with the opportunity to receive advice and discuss their ideas, culminating in presentations of their research to the Thacher community. In 2012, Thacher received the Edward E. Ford Foundation Leadership Grant, which supported Thacher-led forums designed to help other schools develop and improve their own senior capstone projects.
10. Independent Projects: An opportunity for sophomores, juniors, and seniors to forge their own path in the afternoons. Instead of selecting an activity from Thacher's official curriculum, qualifying students follow a course of study or training plan of their own creation, pursuing personal passions such as filmmaking, songwriting, poetry, photography, painting, singing, martial arts, road cycling, aerial dance, horsemanship, and much more.

5. Well-equipped: The school, spanning 425 acres, boasts a beautiful, tree-lined environment with comprehensive hardware facilities, including a library, learning center, science and education building, arts center, tennis courts, health center, hockey fields, soccer fields, swimming pool, dining hall, theater, and track and field, creating an excellent environment for students.

6. Programming and Robotics: Computer programming and robotics courses and club activities complement each other, challenging students to apply the programming languages they've learned—including Java, Python, Ajax, PHP, MySQL, etc.—and explore their practical uses by coding and controlling NAO humanoid robots and LEGO Mindstorms robots or developing their own web applications.

7. Design and Engineering: Club activities and independent projects provide interested students with opportunities to gain programming and mathematical knowledge and apply it to design and engineering work. In the past, students have used 3D printers on campus to build functional prosthetic hands for those in need through global non-profit organizations, configured custom sandboxes and augmented reality software, created interactive topographical watershed models, and more.

8. xBlock Electives: The "x" in xBlock stands for experimental and experiential. These single-semester electives revolve around inquiry-driven learning. Students and teachers explore topics and projects outside the core curriculum together in a spirit of collaboration and discovery. From searching for exoplanets to analyzing baseball statistics to exploring furniture design, xBlock introduces academic programs into uncharted territory.

1.The Thacher campus is located in a valley next to the small Southern California town of Ojai, 85 miles from Los Angeles, about 2 hours from Los Angeles International Airport. It's 1.5 hours from Burbank International Airport.

2.Academic Excellence: Average SAT score 1420/1600; Average ACT score 32/36

3.Horsemanship and Outdoor Programs: Upon enrollment, all 9th-grade students are assigned a horse. Throughout the year, they learn to ride, care for their horse, clean stables, and more. They wake up before 6 AM daily to clean stables and feed horses. 9th-grade students participate in a camping program at the beginning of the school year, learning skills such as tent pitching and weighted wilderness hiking. Benefiting from its unique geographical location, the school also offers numerous outdoor activities like rock climbing. The school's educational philosophy is that horsemanship and outdoor programs provide most students with an unprecedented experience, fostering new ways of thinking.

4.The Thacher Observatory underwent a major renovation in 2016 and is now a state-of-the-art research-grade facility where students have the opportunity to engage in real-world scientific inquiry and applied learning. Students in Astronomy and Data Science courses gain fluency and confidence in mathematics, data analysis, programming, and quantitative research skills through foundational classroom instruction and hands-on activities. At a more advanced level, students have a truly unique opportunity to participate in projects related to professional scientific research conducted by astronomers and astrophysicists from institutions such as Boston University, Harvard University, Louisiana State University, and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Thacher is a small, excellent school located in California's Ojai Valley, about an hour's drive from Los Angeles. The school has 17% international students, and last year's acceptance rate was around 13%, with a 76% yield rate. Applicants are required to submit TOEFL and SSAT scores; the school's average TOEFL score is 112, and the average SSAT score is around the 95th percentile. The school is dedicated to cultivating students' excellent character, believing that some character traits are not innate but can be developed and enhanced through nurture. This is achieved through two aspects: first, performance character, which involves traits like diligence, reliability, and internal drive, aimed at pursuing outstanding achievements. Second, moral character, which includes traits such as respect, empathy, honesty, and humility. The school believes that only by cultivating both external and internal aspects can one achieve happiness, true success, and become a better self. Simultaneously, the school encourages students to step out of their comfort zones, discover and seize opportunities, challenge difficulties, failures, and pressures, and overcome them. At the same time, the school fairly and justly provides assistance to every student to help them succeed.

Thatcher School data: student population 240, student-teacher ratio 1:5, international students 12%, boarding rate 94%, teachers with advanced degrees 72%, students of color 55%, average class size 11, average SAT composite score 1358. Thatcher School holds two half-hour lectures monthly, introducing the school's educational philosophy such as "how to achieve a better self." Thatcher School is dedicated to cultivating character, specifically the character of pursuing achievement and moral character. The combination of these two enables students to be successful, happy, healthy, and become better versions of themselves. Thatcher School adheres to the philosophy that character is malleable. Character is not innate or inherited, nor can the school directly teach character like arithmetic, because character is dynamic. For example, the beauty of achieving character is that you must first experience and overcome failures to achieve something. Equestrianism is Thatcher School's most distinctive activity: new students are provided with a horse upon enrollment. Through raising and caring for horses and learning equestrian skills, students develop resilience, confidence, humility, and patience. This allows many students who have never experienced equestrianism or animal husbandry to master horse riding and face and overcome challenges in the process.

The Thacher School is an amazing school located right next to the small town of Ojai in Southern California. It is nestled in a valley, only 85 miles from Los Angeles, and about a 2-hour drive to Los Angeles International Airport. The school's cool mission is to educate young people in the art of living, enabling them to strive for their own best interests and the common good of others. The school also encourages students to work hard, maintain honesty and integrity, and be independent, while also being passionate about lifelong learning, seeking truth, and caring for the world we live in. The Thacher School is truly outstanding, dedicated to providing students with a unique educational experience that prepares them to become positive, socially responsible young adults.

My son is about to graduate, and witnessing his growth over these four years has further confirmed that choosing Thacher was the right decision. I'm writing down some thoughts for reference.
Firstly, Thacher cultivated his courage and responsibility. For an entire year, he woke up early every morning to shovel horse manure, clean the stables, and feed the horses. Taking care of his horse made him better understand the meaning of responsibility. Horse riding further developed his courage. At a parent-teacher conference, when I saw him gracefully ride down the mountain on his horse and finally stand on the horse to salute us, I couldn't help but shed tears of excitement. I was proud of him and felt for him, wondering how much hardship he had endured.
Secondly, he gained a healthy body. He joined the school's rugby team, lacrosse team, and soccer team. He had at least two hours of training every day and often competed against school teams from different schools. In this process, he became more goal-oriented and learned better how to cooperate with classmates to win.
At the same time, he also developed a rigorous academic attitude and method. His science teacher was a Princeton graduate, whose teaching methods were lively and diverse, but whose requirements for homework were exceptionally strict. Once, my son didn't cite the source for an idea in his homework and was severely criticized. This incident had a significant impact on him; every time we debate now, he tells me not to speak presumptuously.
Overall, these four years have fully met, and even exceeded, our expectations when we sent him to an American high school. Every time I see him quietly and rhythmically doing his own thing, communicating with us logically and thoughtfully, and showing care and consideration when playing with his sister (who also considers Thacher her dream school), I feel deeply comforted.

The Thacher School is a private co-educational boarding school located in Ojai, California, with beautiful scenery! The vast majority of students live on campus, and student activities on weekends are also very rich. There are also regular shuttle buses on weekends to take students to town for shopping or sightseeing.
Student accommodation conditions are excellent! Basically, if requested, single rooms can be provided.
The Thacher School also provides thoughtful care for international students. In the past two years, due to the pandemic, students generally couldn't return home during short holidays. The school thus kept the campus open during Thanksgiving, spring break, etc., allowing students who couldn't go home to stay at school. Dedicated teachers are responsible for the daily life, meals, and various activities of these students. During holidays, these responsible teachers often take the children to visit distant cities.
The academic level of The Thacher School is also relatively high. Students can choose courses suitable for their own level. At the same time, the school also allows students to undertake a semester of independent research. Students propose a topic they wish to pursue, and the school will cooperate with them to conduct their research.

The local community has been stunned after learning that alleged sexual abuse occurred at the elite Ojai, CA, private school. Thacher School, California’s oldest boarding school, was founded in 1889 by Sherman Day Thacher, remaining one of the state’s most prestigious private institutions. The all-boys boarding school began accepting girls in 1977. Although it's an old story, it dealt a fatal blow to the school's reputation.

The most special aspect of Thacher is its Horse Program. New students can choose a horse in the first week of school, and the school requires students to care for the same horse throughout their four years at school. New students and upperclassmen compete in horse races at the annual Big Gymkhana event. Every freshman must participate in a weekend backpacking and riding trip, as well as weekend rides, in their first year. Students can also choose to join the equestrian team and compete in regional equestrian competitions each season. Thacher has organized over 60 camping trips, and students can also travel to China, France, and Spain for overseas exchange and study.

The Thacher School is a co-educational private boarding school located on a 427-acre campus in Ojai, California. The student-faculty ratio is 5.7:1. The school offers nearly 20 advanced courses, including foreign language courses such as French, Latin, Chinese, and Spanish. Thacher graduates are highly sought after by top universities worldwide.

Thacher places great emphasis on sports and arts. The school has a total of 28 sports teams, and students can enjoy sports facilities including newly built fields, gymnasiums, tennis courts, a fitness center, and a track and field stadium. In addition to sports facilities, the school also provides a wealth of art facilities and materials for students with diverse interests in visual arts. Each year, the school produces two major theatrical productions by the Thacher Maskers, including a fall play and a winter musical, as well as a student-produced spring play. The Thacher School also offers mixed dance classes. Students can join various choral and music groups, such as the Thacher Chamber Singers, String Ensemble, Jazz Combo, and Jazz Band. These choral and music groups provide students with various performance opportunities to showcase their talents on stage.

The Thacher School has implemented effective preventive measures against the pandemic. The campus is closed until the end of the spring semester, with all classes conducted online. The school offers four opportunities for in-person campus visits each month, but these are only available to fully vaccinated families. Online virtual visits and online interviews are encouraged.

The Thacher School, founded in 1889, is a co-educational boarding school nestled at the foot of Ojai Valley in California, a 1.5-hour drive from Los Angeles. It boasts a poetic setting with blue skies and white clouds, making it truly unique. The school maintains high academic standards, offering character-building challenges and fostering a healthy, reliable community culture to support students' growth. It enrolls students in grades 9-12, providing a rigorous college preparatory education for academically gifted students. Faculty and students collaborate closely to create a campus environment of cooperation, mutual trust, integrity, and mutual respect. The Thacher School spans 425 acres, encompassing facilities such as a library, learning center, science and education building, arts center, tennis courts, health center, hockey field, soccer field, equestrian center, swimming pool, dining hall, theater, and athletic tracks, providing an excellent environment for students.

Thacher's academics are exceptionally strong. Most classes are small, with about 10-12 students per class, and science classes average around 15 students. The more specialized the course, the fewer students there are; for example, the robotics class has only 3 students, and Latin class has only 4-6 students. Thacher offers many outstanding courses covering various fields, such as computer science and robotics, the history of Latin America, the Middle East, South Africa, China, and Japan, political theory, African American literature, etc. Although Thacher is a top boarding school, competition among students is not intense. On the contrary, students are particularly friendly, helpful to each other, and grow together.

Thacher School is very large, and its beautiful environment makes one feel as if they are in a painting. Its dedicated equestrian center & equestrianism are already one of the school's well-known features. The newly built cafeteria is very nice, though the swimming pool is a bit small.

The school admits very few students, and even fewer from mainland China.

The school is beautiful with pleasant scenery. It's one of the few schools on the West Coast that offers horseback riding. The admission rate is very low, and they prefer students with an international background who also excel in extracurricular activities, academics, and overall abilities.

Overall Situation:
- Academics are very strong. Although the curriculum is not as dazzling as many top-ranked schools, and 9th-10th graders don't have many choices, the learning is very solid.
- The school only has one course directly named an AP course (AP Physics C), but its advanced courses also reach AP difficulty.

Academic Advantages/Features:
- Equestrian Program: One of the school's most famous and attractive programs. Every student participates from 9th grade. 9th graders primarily learn to ride horses, while older students can delve deeper into riding and equestrian skills, participate in equestrian shows and the equestrian team. This program not only develops students' physical fitness but also teaches them responsibility, as students are required to fully manage their horses, clean stables before morning classes, study and train in the afternoon, and feed horses in the evening.
- Observatory and Astronomy: The school has its own planetarium, which was just renovated in 2016 and is now fully equipped and advanced. A distinctive course, Astronomy Research, allows students to participate in university astronomy research projects, such as those at the University of California, Boston University, etc.
- Robotics and Engineering: Beyond courses, students can also participate in related club activities, complementing each other. If students have ideas and willingness, they can also utilize school resources, such as 3D printers, to undertake independent projects.

Shangxue Mingde Student Feedback:
- Both humanities and sciences are excellent, but it's slightly biased towards sciences.
- Mathematics before calculus was integrated mathematics, and 9th and 10th-grade science was integrated science, which might be challenging for students with weak math and science foundations.

Located at the foot of the Topatopa Mountains in Ojai, California, the campus is beautiful and 85 miles from Los Angeles. Thacher's four guiding principles are: Honor, Fairness, Kindness, and Honesty.

School Advantages:

1. Horse Program: The school has an outstanding equestrian program. Every freshman gets to care for a horse, and the school uses this to cultivate perseverance, responsibility, and patience in students. An equestrian team is also provided. Many students participating in equestrian competitions have won world championship titles.

2. Excellent Football: Men's 8-man undefeated football team: The school's football team is very strong.

3. Strong in Sciences: Especially the observatory and astronomy program, programming and robotics, and engineering: Students have unique opportunities to participate in projects related to professional scientific research with astronomers and astrophysicists from institutions such as Boston University, Harvard University, and Louisiana State University.

4. Offers Global Study Programs: Global studying program: The Co-Curricular Program includes xBlock Electives, offering a broader range of courses for in-depth study, such as Advanced French and Frontier Topics in Astronomy Research.

5. Off Campus Program: Includes School Year Abroad (SYA), which sends students to live and study abroad for a year in France, China, Italy, or Spain.

Languages at Thacher also represent a very strong academic area. Every student is required to study a foreign language and reach a Level 3 proficiency, ensuring that by graduation, each student has mastered a foreign language. Although Thacher is a small school, a variety of language courses are available, including Spanish, French, Latin, and Chinese. Thacher offers many outstanding courses covering a wide range of fields, such as computer science and robotics, political theory, African American literature, and more.