Admissions

The PCD Quest

Join us as we set out to reinvent education.

As the Providence Country Day School looks towards our centennial and the century beyond, our highest duty is to provide an education that prepares our students to succeed in life.

Education is at a Crossroads

The 21st century has ushered in an era of extraordinary change and proliferation of information. Schools can't adapt to this new world by simply making changes at the margins. Preparing our students for the challenges that await them calls for meaningful, transformative change. We are embarking on a year-long quest to define the ideal 21st-century education.

You want an education that is accessible, personal, and relevant.

A quest to reinvent a decades-old model has risks, and the possibility of great reward, though the outcome is uncertain. Like any quest, it is both exciting and daunting, but we are unafraid.

This is what Knights are for.

Accessible

Tuition Reset

PCD’s tuition reset is one of the boldest moves in independent education today.

PCD is pleased to announce a major tuition reduction—called a tuition reset—for the fall of 2021. After listening carefully to the concerns of PCD parents and as a direct response to the skyrocketing tuitions of private education, we thought it was time to take a different path.

Our answer: starting in 2021, PCD is hitting the reset button. PCD is resetting tuition by nearly 40%. Tuition will be $22,000 for Middle School and $25,000 for Upper School.

Over the past generation, household wages have increased 15% while PCD's tuition has increased 400% — typical for independent schools. We recognize that the financial model for both independent schools and for higher education is broken. Tuition prices have spiraled out of control and it is no longer sustainable for either schools or for the families we serve.

For all the diversity and inclusion efforts that have been poured into private schools, the reality is that they are more exclusive than ever. This is contrary to our values. We felt compelled to finally do something about this complex problem.

Personal

The PCD Playbook

The PCD Playbook is an individualized ‘Book of You’ that captures a holistic snapshot of every student. Working with an advisor, they'll use the The Playbook as a guide for expressing who they are and where they'd like to go. Students will regularly contribute their strengths, challenges, dreams, and desires.

To truly get the most out of a student, the teacher needs to have a deep understanding of their strengths, their obstacles, and what provides the greatest motivation for their success. The PCD playbook is a living, breathing document that will change and evolve along with the student throughout the year.

List of 2 items.

  • Your Guide Through PCD

    This comprehensive Playbook will ensure that every student knows they are valued — and will provide parents with a window into their children’s aspirations... and PCD’s plan to help them achieve them.

    Faculty will be able to refer to The Playbook as a guide for helping students thrive and parents will enjoy this comprehensive window into who their child is.
  • That Changes as You Change

    As students change and grow, their aspirations will evolve as well, and the path to reach those aspirations has to adjust accordingly. This habit of adaptation is perhaps the single most important skill we can teach children in the 21st century.

    As they culminate their PCD career, each PCD graduate will receive a detailed — and beautiful — book that documents their progress and growth.

    The pace of change has become so fast that there's no way to know what world – what careers, what environment, what society – we are preparing them for, so the most important task is to teach them to adapt to whatever that world turns out to be.

Relevant

For nearly a century, PCD has shifted curriculum and embraced current pedagogical practices to ensure that our graduates are prepared for success in college and in life.

In the Information Age, education is more than how much you know. It's about how well you think and how quickly you can adapt. Students will need to think critically and synthesize an enormous volume of information around them; make decisions effectively and ethically; and work cross-culturally within diverse teams to make change in the world.

Building on What We Do Best

Just about every school in the world is working with a model we inherited from the 20th century. It's a strong model – it gave us space travel and climatology and Hamilton. But the 21st century is different in really important ways, especially the pace of change. We can't fully prepare kids for a century as dynamic as this one by making changes at the margins. We have to think systemically.

Despite the importance of our beautiful campus right here in East Providence, the recent past has shown us that the PCD culture and ethos transcends our physical campus. We are pleased to announce that, in conjunction with our partner, Hudson Global Scholars, we are launching the PCD Online Academy as a means to teach students all over the country and throughout the world.

Our small size gives us the ability to observe and to think critically about how best to serve our current and future families. This is both the privilege and the responsibility of being an independent school. We have the freedom to think and act boldly – which can be exciting and daunting – and forging ahead like this breaks new ground that colleagues in education around the world can take advantage of to nurture the children under their care.