List of Boston Latin School alumni

A photograph of the entrance to a building displaying three stories of windows, a four-column portico, and a sign reading "BOSTON LATIN SCHOOL".
The front entrance to Boston Latin School on Avenue Louis Pasteur

Boston Latin School is a public exam school located in Boston, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1635. It is the first public school and the oldest existing school in the United States.[1][2][3][4]

The school's first class included nine students; the school now has 2,400 pupils drawn from all parts of Boston. Its graduates have included four Harvard presidents, eight Massachusetts state governors, and five signers of the United States Declaration of Independence, as well as several preeminent architects, a leading art historian, a notable naturalist and the conductors of the New York Philharmonic and Boston Pops orchestras. There are also several notable non-graduate alumni, including Louis Farrakhan, a leader of the Nation of Islam. Boston Latin admitted only male students at its founding in 1635.[4] The school's first female student was admitted in the nineteenth century. In 1972, Boston Latin admitted its first co-educational class.[5]

Admission is determined by a combination of a student's score on the independent school Entrance Examination and recent grades, and is limited to residents of the city of Boston.[6] Although Boston Latin runs from the 7th through the 12th grade, it admits students only into the 7th and 9th grades. In 2007, the school was named one of the top twenty high schools in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.[2][7]

  1. ^ "History of Boston Latin School". Boston Latin School. Archived from the original on March 5, 2009. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
  2. ^ a b Ramírez, Eddy (November 29, 2007). "The First-Class State—Two examples of how Massachusetts gets it right". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
  3. ^ Brooks, Phillip; Robert Grant (1885). The Oldest School in America. Cambridge, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. p. 11. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
  4. ^ a b "First Public School in America". National Geographic Society. April 6, 2020. Archived from the original on February 26, 2021. Retrieved February 23, 2021.
  5. ^ Provenzo, Eugene F.; Renaud, John P.; Provenzo, Asterie Baker (2009). Encyclopedia of the Social and Cultural Foundations of Education: A-H ; 2, I-Z ; 3, Biographies, visual history, index. SAGE. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-4129-0678-4.
  6. ^ "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Entrance to Boston Latin School" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 29, 2008. Retrieved December 31, 2007.
  7. ^ "Best High Schools 2008". U.S. News & World Report. November 29, 2007. Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. Retrieved December 20, 2008.