Wide morning view across a tree-lined Northern Virginia campus drive, with a school bus pulled up at a covered entrance and parents walking children toward the doors.
Private schools have no attendance boundaries. Which house you buy does not determine whether your child may apply to any school on this page, so this guide is organised the way families actually shop — by region, not by neighbourhood. What a house purchase genuinely does change is the drive, and in Northern Virginia that is a real variable. The area covered here runs from Old Town Alexandria to Middleburg, roughly fifty miles end to end, and a campus that is ten minutes from Del Ray can be over an hour from the hunt country. Details below were verified in August 2026 from each school's own site; grade ranges and calendars change, and the school is always the authority.
In the McLean and Tysons corridor: The Potomac School in McLean is coed and serves kindergarten through grade 12. The Langley School, at 1411 Balls Hill Road in McLean, is coed, preschool through grade 8, and was founded in 1942. BASIS Independent McLean sits at 8000 Jones Branch Drive in Tysons and is coed, pre-K through grade 12. Moving west and south: Flint Hill School in Oakton is coed, junior kindergarten through grade 12, across three campuses. In Vienna, Green Hedges School at 415 Windover Avenue NW is coed with a Montessori preschool and a preparatory programme for grades 1 through 8, and Oakcrest School at 1619 Crowell Road is a school for girls in grades 6 through 12 that states it is guided by the teachings of the Catholic Church and the spirituality of Opus Dei. Congressional School occupies a forty-acre campus in Falls Church and is coed, infants through grade 8, founded in 1939. Nysmith School, at 13625 EDS Drive in Herndon, is coed, preschool through grade 8. Two Diocese of Arlington high schools are coed and serve grades 9 through 12: Bishop O'Connell at 6600 Little Falls Road in Arlington, and Bishop Ireton at 201 Cambridge Road near Old Town Alexandria, founded in 1964 and coeducational since 1990, rooted in the Salesian tradition of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. In Alexandria itself, St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School is an Episcopal coed school serving age three through grade 12 across three campuses on Seminary Ridge. Episcopal High School, at 1200 North Quaker Lane, is coed, grades 9 through 12, founded in 1839, and fully boarding — there is no day option, which surprises local buyers regularly. Burgundy Farm Country Day School on Burgundy Road is coed, junior kindergarten through grade 8; Browne Academy on Telegraph Road is coed, age three through grade 8; and Alexandria Country Day School at 2400 Russell Road is coed, kindergarten through grade 8.
Loudoun Country Day School, at 20600 Red Cedar Drive in Leesburg, is coed, preschool through grade 8, founded in 1953 on sixty-nine acres. In Middleburg, The Hill School at 130 South Madison Street is coed, junior kindergarten through grade 8, founded in 1926 on a 137-acre campus, and is nonsectarian. Foxcroft School, also in Middleburg, is a school for girls in grades 9 through 12, founded in 1914 on roughly 500 acres, offering both boarding and day enrolment. One correction worth making, because it still appears in older directories and search results: Middleburg Academy, which began as Notre Dame Academy, announced its closure in June 2020 and is no longer operating. Families relocating to western Loudoun should note how thin the K–12 independent day options are once you pass Leesburg — the three schools above are effectively the local field, and several families in that area look at boarding for the high school years.
This is the one place where a house purchase genuinely changes private schooling, so it is worth checking before you write an offer. Flint Hill School publishes route service to Alexandria, Arcola, Arlington, Ashburn, Chantilly, Fairfax Station, Falls Church, Great Falls, Herndon, Leesburg, Lorton, McLean, National Harbor, Springfield, Reston, Sterling and Vienna. Its service is fee-based; the published 2026–27 figures are $4,200 round trip and $2,100 one way per student, with an evening athletics bus priced separately. The Potomac School runs a fee-based neighbourhood programme the school describes as more than twenty-three routes, plus a free shuttle system with eleven stops including locations near Eastern Market, Union Station and the East Falls Church Metro, and, as needed, McLean Metro. Note a structural rule there: Potomac requires students in grades 1 through 11 to travel by bus, with kindergarten and grade 12 excepted. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes runs nine commuter routes reaching Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington and Prince William counties, Prince George's County and the District, and the school says it will work to place a centralised stop within a couple of miles of an enrolled family's home. It also runs a free inter-campus shuttle and a complimentary Braddock Road Metro shuttle, picking up around 7:35–7:40 a.m. and dropping around 4:10–4:15 p.m. Nysmith School lists service toward Vienna, Great Falls, McLean, Reston, the Dulles Greenway and Leesburg. Congressional School offers door-to-door pickup inside a mapped zone around Falls Church plus five community stops, and quotes individually for addresses outside it. Burgundy Farm states it runs no daily bus service and that families carpool. Routes are re-cut each year around where enrolled families actually live, so confirm the current stop list with the school's transportation office rather than relying on last year's map.
The regional rhythm, as of August 2026, runs roughly like this: inquiries and open houses from September into November, teacher recommendations in November, applications closing in mid-January, testing and student visits from December into January, decisions in late February, and signed contracts due in mid-March. Two concrete examples from school sites: Flint Hill lists a January 13, 2027 deadline for 2027–28 entry, with financial aid applications opening October 1, decisions emailed February 26, 2027, and revisit events in early March. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes lists a January 15 priority deadline; in the cycle just completed for 2026–27 entry, its decisions were released February 27 and enrolment commitments were due March 13. Testing requirements vary by school and by division. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes requires an age-appropriate admission assessment of every applicant and SSAT results for middle and upper school candidates. Flint Hill requires a Gesell Developmental Observation for junior kindergarten through grade 2 at no cost to families, and treats the SSAT as optional for middle and upper school. Families relocating mid-year are caught by this constantly. If you arrive after March, ask each admissions office directly about space-available or rolling review, and about waitpool movement over the summer — several schools do enrol after the main round, but only where a seat opens. Admissions calendars shift year to year and each school's own site governs; treat every date here as a shape to plan around, not a commitment.
From McLean and Great Falls, the Potomac School, The Langley School and BASIS Independent McLean are local drives, and Flint Hill, Green Hedges and Oakcrest are a short run down toward Oakton and Vienna. Nysmith is reached west via the Toll Road. From Vienna, Green Hedges and Oakcrest are in town, Flint Hill is minutes away, and Congressional is east along Route 7. From Arlington, Bishop O'Connell is in-county, Congressional is close, and the Alexandria campuses are reachable — St. Stephen's & St. Agnes families in this direction often use the Braddock Road Metro shuttle. From Old Town, Del Ray, Belle Haven, Cameron Station, Kingstowne and Mount Vernon, the practical field is largely inside Alexandria: St. Stephen's & St. Agnes, Bishop Ireton, Alexandria Country Day on Russell Road in Del Ray, Commonwealth Academy on Leslie Avenue, Potomac Crescent Waldorf on North Washington Street in Old Town, Burgundy Farm, and Browne Academy on Telegraph Road. The McLean and Oakton campuses are a different proposition from here, requiring the Beltway or a river crossing at rush hour, which is exactly why several of those schools run Alexandria and Arlington bus routes. From Leesburg, Loudoun Country Day is in town, Nysmith is down the Greenway, and Flint Hill lists a Leesburg route. From Middleburg, The Hill School and Foxcroft are local; the Fairfax and Alexandria campuses are not a daily drive from there in any realistic sense, and families should plan accordingly rather than assume a bus solves it.
Multi-campus schools. St. Stephen's & St. Agnes runs three campuses within about a mile and a half of each other in Alexandria: lower school for junior kindergarten through grade 5 on Fontaine Street, middle school for grades 6 through 8 on Braddock Road, and upper school for grades 9 through 12 on St. Stephen's Road. Flint Hill runs three in Oakton: Hazel Lower School at 10409 Academic Drive, Peterson Middle School at 10900 Oakton Road, and the upper school at 3320 Jermantown Road. Ask which campus your child's grade actually sits on, since the drop-off address changes as they move up. Schools that end at grade 8. The Langley School, Congressional, Nysmith, Green Hedges, Burgundy Farm, Browne Academy, Alexandria Country Day, Loudoun Country Day and The Hill School all conclude at eighth grade, which means a second admissions round for ninth. Build that into your planning rather than meeting it by surprise. Montessori and Waldorf. Brooksfield School in McLean serves roughly ages two through six; Montessori School of McLean and Aquinas Montessori School in Alexandria each serve through the elementary grades; Green Hedges runs a Montessori preschool ahead of its graded programme; and Potomac Crescent Waldorf School at 424 North Washington Street in Alexandria serves pre-K through grade 5. Learning differences and special education. Commonwealth Academy at 1321 Leslie Avenue in Alexandria serves middle and upper school students, including twice-exceptional learners. The Auburn School operates a Herndon campus and The Newton School is in Sterling, both serving elementary and middle grades. These schools run their own intake processes, often involving prior evaluations and sometimes public-school placements, on timelines that do not always match the independent-school calendar above. Boarding. Episcopal High School in Alexandria is fully boarding, and Foxcroft in Middleburg enrols both boarding and day students.
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.
