A wide, low-angle photograph of a mature tree-lined suburban road in Bethesda on a clear autumn morning, with a yellow school bus pulled to the shoulder and brick and glass school buildings set well back behind lawn. No signage, logos, faces or children in focus. Warm morning light, shallow depth of field, landscape orientation.
Private schools have no attendance boundaries. Unlike the public system, where your address decides the school, an independent school admits from across the region, so the house you buy does not determine the choice. This page is therefore organised regionally. Several long-established campuses sit here, and families cross the DC line in both directions daily. What follows is factual: which schools exist, where the campuses are, the grades they serve, how the buses run, and how the admissions calendar works.
Bethesda: Landon School, 6101 Wilson Lane, boys, grades 3-12, founded 1929. Holton-Arms School, 7303 River Road, girls, grades 3-12, founded 1901. Norwood School, 8821 River Road, coed, pre-kindergarten through grade 8, founded 1952. The Primary Day School, 7300 River Road, coed, pre-kindergarten through grade 2. Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, 9101 Rockville Pike, Catholic, all-girls in grades 1-12 with a coed early childhood programme. Washington Waldorf School, 4800 Sangamore Road, coed, preschool through grade 12, founded 1969, a member of the Association of Waldorf Schools of North America. The Woods Academy, 6801 Greentree Road, Catholic, coed, age three through grade 8. Mater Dei School, 9600 Seven Locks Road, Catholic, boys, grades 1-8. Potomac: Bullis School, 10601 Falls Road, coed, K-12, founded 1930. St. Andrew's Episcopal School, 8804 Postoak Road, Episcopal, coed, age two through grade 12. Connelly School of the Holy Child, 9029 Bradley Boulevard, Catholic, girls, grades 6-12. The Heights School, 10400 Seven Locks Road, boys, grades 3-12. German International School Washington D.C., 8617 Chateau Drive, coed, preschool through grade 12, founded 1961, bilingual German-English, awarding the German International Abitur and a US diploma. North Bethesda and Rockville: Georgetown Preparatory School, 10900 Rockville Pike, Jesuit, boys, grades 9-12, founded 1789. Green Acres School, 11701 Danville Drive, coed, pre-kindergarten through grade 8. Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, pluralistic Jewish, coed, junior kindergarten through grade 12, on two Rockville campuses. Chevy Chase: Concord Hill School, 6050 Wisconsin Avenue, coed, age three through grade 3. Silver Spring: Barrie School, 13500 Layhill Road, coed, three months through grade 12. All are day schools; Georgetown Prep also boards.
This is the one part of private schooling a house purchase changes, because stops are geographic and seats are finite. Landon runs seven routes over twenty stops: Blue (Germantown, Gaithersburg, Potomac), Purple (Olney, Leisure World), Orange (Arlington, Alexandria), Yellow (Great Falls), Green (McLean), Brown (Georgetown) and Red (Prince George's County); Blue and Yellow are shared Holton-Landon routes. Holton-Arms lists eleven service areas for 2026-27: Alexandria/McLean, Arlington/McLean, Bethesda, Capitol Hill, Cleveland Park/Spring Valley, Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase, Germantown/Gaithersburg/Potomac Village, Guy Mason/Palisades, Great Falls, Olney/Silver Spring, and Prince George's County, most with late service. A low-cost shuttle links the Holton-Arms and Landon campuses for students meeting siblings, and the Metrobus T-2 stops in front of Holton-Arms. St. Andrew's lists ten shuttles for 2026-27: Bethesda/Friendship Heights, Chevy Chase, Silver Spring/Kensington/Wheaton, McLean, Up-County, Bowie, Spring Valley, Arlington/Crystal City (marked not running this year), Eastern Market, and a new Olney/Upper Silver Spring route. Stone Ridge publishes six morning routes with named stops, including the Spring Valley Shopping Center and the Potomac Library lot at 10101 Glenolden Drive; its Alexandria/Arlington and Great Falls/McLean routes also carry Georgetown Prep students. Prep runs a free shuttle from Grosvenor Metro, about seven-tenths of a mile away, at 7:30 and 8:05 a.m., and Ride On Route 46 serves the campus. Bullis runs full-year round-trip, one-way and activity buses across Maryland, DC and Virginia but does not publish its stop list; ask its transportation manager about the nearest stop.
Most of these schools belong to the Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington, whose Statement to Applicants sets a common rhythm: decisions on the last Friday in February, electronic notification no earlier than 4 p.m.; contracts due back no sooner than the second Friday in March, or two weeks after notification; contracts binding at 4 p.m. on May 1. For entry in autumn 2027, three schools we checked publish matching dates. Bullis opened applications on 1 September 2026, with an application and financial-aid deadline of 8 January 2027, decisions on 26 February 2027 and enrollment decisions due 12 March 2027. Landon lists the same 8 January deadline and an open house on Sunday 18 October. St. Andrew's lists 8 January, decisions posted at 4 p.m. on 26 February, and a response deadline of 12 March. Testing practice varies: St. Andrew's requires no admission test at any grade, inviting applicants in grades 6-12 to submit either a project or scores such as the SSAT, ISEE, PSAT, SAT or ACT. Visits and interviews are generally scheduled after an application is filed, through autumn and early winter. Relocating families are caught by this constantly, because the sequence runs a year ahead of the move; if you are house-hunting in spring or summer you are usually past the current cycle, so ask about space-available admission. These dates shift year to year, and each school's own admissions page is the authority.
Three campuses sit within about a mile of one another on River Road in Bethesda: Holton-Arms at 7303, The Primary Day School at 7300 and Norwood at 8821. From west Bethesda or the streets off Bradley Boulevard that is a short local drive. Landon on Wilson Lane is inside the Beltway near downtown Bethesda, and the Washington Waldorf and Woods Academy campuses on Sangamore and Greentree Roads are also Bethesda-side runs. Stone Ridge and Georgetown Prep both sit on Rockville Pike, easy from North Bethesda and Rockville but longer from lower Bethesda or Chevy Chase at peak. From Potomac, Bullis, St. Andrew's, The Heights, McLean, Mater Dei and the German International School fall in a compact area off Falls Road, Seven Locks Road, Bradley Boulevard and Postoak Road, most roughly ten to fifteen minutes from Potomac Village outside rush hour. From Chevy Chase, Concord Hill is in the neighbourhood itself and the River Road schools are a straight run along Bradley or River Road, while the Potomac and Rockville Pike campuses are a genuine cross-county drive, which is why many Chevy Chase families use the bus routes instead. Drive the route at 7:45 on a school-day morning first.
Several schools run more than one campus. McLean School teaches kindergarten through grade 4 at 11810 Falls Road and grades 5-12 at 8224 Lochinver Lane, both in Potomac. Charles E. Smith divides its lower school at 1901 East Jefferson Street from its upper school at 11710 Hunters Lane in Rockville. Rochambeau, the French International School, accredited by the French Ministry of Education, runs Maplewood at 9650 Rockville Pike for age two through grade 5 and Forest Road at 9600 Forest Road for grades 6-12. A second group ends before high school, which means applying twice: Norwood, Green Acres, The Woods Academy and Mater Dei finish at grade 8, Concord Hill at grade 3, The Primary Day School at grade 2. Each runs a placement process, so budget for a second cycle. On Montessori and Waldorf: Barrie uses Montessori through grade 5, and The Woods Academy from age three through kindergarten. For learning differences and special education, McLean School embeds classroom support for dyslexia, ADHD, executive functioning, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and academic anxiety. The Diener School, 9312 Old Georgetown Road in Bethesda, serves kindergarten through grade 8 with a multi-sensory approach and Orton-Gillingham-trained staff. Ivymount, 11614 Seven Locks Road in Potomac, is a non-public special education day school for students aged 5 to 21 who are autistic or have other complex learning needs, and also operates The Maddux School, pre-kindergarten through grade 2.
Schools are named and located here, never rated or ranked. Grade ranges, fees and admissions calendars change — each school's own site is the authority. Current as of August 2026.
Application calendars and bus routes both turn on where you land. Artur can talk through how a specific area lines up before you commit to a house.
