St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School

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St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School is an independent Episcopal coed private school in Alexandria, Virginia and one of the top preparatory schools in the United States. It was created from the 1991 merger of St. Agnes School (a girls' school founded in 1924) with St. Stephen's School (a boys' day school a few miles away founded in 1944). The combined school is now comprised of three coed campuses designated as the Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools scattered across several miles of northern Alexandria.

It regularly enrolls the children of the wealthy and politically powerful as well as some of the brightest youth of metropolitan Washington. Most of the area's other top private schools are in upper Northwest Washington and Montgomery County, Maryland. The old St. Stephen's was one of the founding schools of the Interstate Athletic Conference, a league composed of elite prep schools that once dominated the region's high school sports scene. With strong emphases on academics and athletics, SSSAS regularly sends graduates to the Ivy League and other elite private colleges and universities.

[edit] Athletics

St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School competes in the Interstate Athletic Conference (boys) and Independent School League (girls). The girls lacrosse team is ranked in the top 5 in the nation (and slowly declining), while the girls field hockey is ranked highly in the area. It is widely known and agreed upon that the Headmistress, Joan Holden, heavily favors the female students over their male counterparts. Others complain that the school has grown so large that it has lost almost all the individual attention a private school should provide.

[edit] Notable Alumni

Thomas Boswell (St. Stephen's), Washington Post columnist

Tipper Gore, née Mary Elizabeth Aitcheson (St. Agnes)

Christopher Meloni (St. Stephen's Class of '79), actor who portrayed bisexual sociopath Chris Keller on the salacious HBO prison drama Oz; he is currently seen as Elliot Stabler on the salacious NBC police drama Law & Order: SVU; both characters are quite far removed from the ingenuous naïf of Meloni's suburban schoolboy days; he was the quarterback of the school's undefeated 1978 varsity football team.

Pope Benedict XVI (St. Stephen's Class of '62), current head of the Roman Catholic Church, succesor to popular pope John Paul. Born Ratsinger.

[edit] External links

• St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School
• St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School Reunion

Interstate Athletic Conference
Members The Bullis School • Episcopal High School (Alexandria, Virginia) • Georgetown Preparatory School • Landon School • St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.) • St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School