Auspicious Alums:
-Anne Legendre Armstrong, first woman appointed U.S. ambassador to Great Britain
-Frances Fitzgerald, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam.
-Stephanie Zimbalist, actress.

Charlotte Haxall Noland, Foxcroft’s founder and longtime headmistress (from 1914 to 1961) encouraged her students to fox hunt and was herself Master of the renowned Middleburg Hunt. John and Penny Denegre, who, as it happens, indirectly succeeded Ms. Noland as Joint Master of the Middleburg Hunt, found Foxcroft the ideal school for their daughter Alden, who grew up around horses on the family farm. Students can either ride one of the school’s horses or board their own in a campus stable. Facilities at this all-girl institution include a 200-foot by 100-foot indoor arena as well as outdoor sand and grass arenas. Cross-country courses are available for both novices and those riding competitively.

THE FOXCROFT School’s riding program fosters a cooperative, as much as a competitive, spirit.

Even more important than providing Alden a chance to ride, the Denegres say Foxcroft has given their daughter a community that values cooperation as much as it honors competition. Even in the school’s annual lead line competition—where riders circle an arena and are judged on criteria like horsemanship and posture—the Denegres say they are impressed with the helpful way veteran riders aid rookies. Many schools say they instill students with a sense of civility and compassion, John Denegre notes. “At Foxcroft those really are a reality,” he adds.

Admission Director Becky Gilmore cites the school’s decision 15 years ago to hire separate teaching and residential faculties as another key strength. This helps eliminate what is known among boarding school faculty as the “triple threat” (teaching, coaching and dorm duties), and enables each group to focus its energies on what it does best. Academically, the decision appears to be paying off. Almost half of Foxcroft students take more than four years worth of science and math classes, a figure far above the average for all-girl schools.