The 50 most expensive private high schools in America

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $42,320

Enrollment: 1,017

Incoming ninth graders spend eleven days at the beginning of their Upper School career on a camping trip getting to know their peers and teachers. This tradition is known as "Bivouac."

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $42,400

Enrollment: 430

The all-girls Winsor School has incredible facilities, including three art studios, seven spacious science labs, a recording studio, a multi-media language learning lab, a library, and an assembly hall in the main building alone.

Location: Dobbs Ferry, New York

Tuition and fees: $42,410

Enrollment: 475

Located atop a hill in the historic town of Dobbs Ferry, The Masters School recently released a new strategic plan for 2015–2020, which includes a new mission statement: "The Masters School celebrates active participation, deep understanding, and meaningful connection. A community of diverse individuals, we gather to learn, to strive, to dare, to do — to be a power for good in the world."

Location: McLean, Virginia

Tuition and fees: $42,461

Enrollment: 306

Madeira makes sure its girls never want for access to the latest technology. For that reason, all teachers have iPads and all classrooms are equipped with Apple TVs.

Location: New Milford, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $42,598

Enrollment: 350

The Roman Catholic school operates on Five Values — Honesty, Respect, Compassion, Spirituality, and Self-Reliance — that drive and motivate students to succeed. More than one-fifth of the class of 2015 graduated with a GPA of 3.7 or higher.

Location: Washington, DC

Tuition and fees: $42,798

Enrollment: 575

St. Albans is renovating its sports fields to expand its prestigious athletics program. Renovations will include a large, multisport field, regulation baseball field, and six-lane running track. St. Albans, which is also has room and board options, was named the smartest boarding school in America earlier this year.

Location: Natick, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $42,900

Enrollment: 300

Day students can request to "affiliate" with one of the dorms on campus in order to have access to common rooms and resources, and bond with their residential classmates.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $42,960

Enrollment: 1,300

Dalton is the alma mater of some high profile alumni, including Anderson Cooper, Claire Danes, and Chevy Chase. One of the most prestigious private schools in New York, Dalton cites Cornell, Yale, UPenn, Columbia, and Harvard as the top five colleges where students matriculate after graduation.

Location: North Andover, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $43,002

Enrollment: 380

Students participate in afternoon programs in the arts, sports, and community service; if they're passionate about another subject or issue, they also have the option of designing their own afternoon programs.

Location: Avon, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $43,100

Enrollment: 408

The all-boys Old Avon Farms School has one of the strongest athletic programs in the country. Their teams have won over 30 league and New England championships in the past 15 years, and often send their players off to top collegiate sports teams.

Location: Wallingford, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $43,251

Enrollment: 865

Choate students never feel lost or alone on campus; day students have access to a Director of Day Students, as well as 10 student prefects who act as advisors, mentors, and friends.

All students are required to have the latest generation iPad, which factors into the school fees.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $43,400*

Enrollment: 653

The all-boys school builds strong leadership skills by giving students the opportunity to lead one another as peer leaders in small group activities on campus and class trips. Seniors have the option of spending a significant part of their last semester on an in-depth independent project. Past projects ranged from internships to creating documentaries to teaching students in younger grades.

*2014-2015 tuition and fees

Location: Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $43,630

Enrollment: 457

Beaver partners with MIT in creating the NuVu Studio program, where MIT scholars use the MIT studio model style of learning to train Beaver students in technology and innovation studies.

Additional tuition refund insurance, billed at 0.9% of annual tuition, is mandatory.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $43,650

Enrollment: 530

Léman Manhattan a sister school of both the Collège du Léman on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland, and Léman International School in Chengdu, China. The three schools form a close-knit consortium. Léman Manhattan offers the unique International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, which aims to prepare students for adult life in a global society.

Location: Wellesley, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $43,650*

Enrollment: 355

Founded by Henry Durant, who also founded Wellesley College, Dana Hall remains one of the most prestigious all-girls schools in the country. Girls from the class of 2015 went on to colleges such as Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, and more.

*2014-2015 tuition and fees

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $43,675

Enrollment: 740

College counseling for Dwight School students starts early and continues until acceptance letters come in the mail. Dwight is a pipeline to some of the top universities in the world, including Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Princeton, MIT, NYU, and McGill.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $43,680

Enrollment: 698

Rising juniors and seniors at this all-girls school have the opportunity to spend three weeks in India, China, or Vermont, working on projects that involve sustainable farming, examining poverty, or improving education.

Location: Concord, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $43,680*

Enrollment: 375

Day students make up about half the student body at CA. But they still have access to all the same resources as boarders, including late-night library hours and after-class extra help from teachers.

*2014-2015 tuition and fees

Location: Millbrook, New York

Tuition and fees: $43,755

Enrollment: 284

Trevor Zoo sits right on the Millbrook campus. In fact, it's the only zoo in the country located at a high school. Students can study the animals right on campus with biology teachers.

Location: Groton, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $43,990*

Enrollment: 370

Every sixth form (12th grade) student has the chance to be a prefect and lead a dorm of younger students, who benefit from the guidance and mentorship of their older schoolmates. In addition to a rigorous academic program, Groton also excels in its athletics and arts departments.

*2014-2015 tuition and fees

Location: Weston, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,180

Enrollment: 490

The Rivers School is known for its prestigious Conservatory Program. The conservatory trains musician-scholars for careers in music and performance after school.

Location: Carpinteria, California

Tuition and fees: $44,260

Enrollment: 270

Cate's campus, known affectionately as "the Mesa," is two miles from the ocean, 20 miles from Santa Barbara, and close to school-owned land in the beautiful Los Padres National Forest.

Location: Windsor, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $44,395

Enrollment: 650

Loomis Chaffee's wide array of student clubs span all kinds of interests, from the BBQ club to the medical research club to the Zombie Apocalypse club. The school also offers nearly 60 AP and advanced classes for students looking to challenge themselves academically.

Location: Dedham, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,400

Enrollment: 603

Noble and Greenough's Putnam Library has over 35,000 print volumes, as well as online and e-book resources that make Kindles, MacBooks, and other academic technology available to students.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $44,450

Enrollment: 775

Class 10 Chapin girls have the opportunity to go on exchange with St. Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls in Perth, Australia — a recently launched program. Other students can travel to Italy, France, or Spain.

Location: Byfield, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,500

Enrollment: 400+

The Governor's Academy has a partnership with the Navajo Preparatory School in which students visit each others' schools for a week in a cultural exchange. Students can also participate in trips to China, South Africa, or Mexico.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $44,575

Enrollment: 375

The all-boys Browning School takes pride in the continuing closeness and friendships that develop in the classroom. Alumni frequently return for events, and can take advantage of a career networking intranet through the school's alumni web page.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $44,630

Enrollment: 500+

The Catholic school makes religious studies an integral part of the girls' education, but makes sure to broaden the religious curriculum to other world religions as well. Students take yearly retreats to bond and gain in-depth spiritual insight.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $44,700

Enrollment: 525

Students at this all-girls school are divided into two teams named for the school's colors, blue and white, and compete in an annual color war to promote school pride, camaraderie, and a little friendly competition.

Students in grade eight and above incur a one-time charge for a laptop.

Location: Sheffield, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,700

Enrollment: 405

Day students are fully integrated into the Berkshire community along with their boarding counterparts. Every day student is assigned an academic advisor who ensures he or she grows emotionally and academically.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $44,735

Enrollment: 700

CSH is a part of a 150-plus-schools-strong global network of Catholic girls' schools that provides graduates with a worldwide network of Sacred Heart alumnae.

Location: Newton, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,740

Enrollment: 411

This Roman Catholic school gives its senior girls the option of conducting an independent study, which involves an off-site internship and oral presentation to teachers about the experience.

Location: Hightstown, New Jersey

Tuition and fees: $44,800

Enrollment: 549

Peddie often serves local, seasonal produce at mealtimes. Its Jersey location puts it right in the heart of the state's farm scene, which is reflected in menu options like fresh Jersey tomato bruschetta and seasonal fruit salad.

Location: Brookline, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $44,875

Enrollment: 775

Dexter Southfield students are notably eloquent. From the time they enroll, public speaking becomes an important part of their education through poetry readings, debates, and class presentations.

Location: Weston, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $45,050

Enrollment: 335

Students chart their own learning by picking from a 300+ course catalog. Most classes involve hands on learning in lab- or seminar-style settings.

Location: Middleburg, Virginia

Tuition and fees: $45,060

Enrollment: 165

Foxcroft girls benefit from a highly rigorous academic curriculum. The weight of the course load and school work students are assigned prepares them for some of the best colleges in the world.

Location: Groton, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $45,075

Enrollment: 400

A few years ago, Lawrence Academy's director of technology, who also teaches math, decided to "flip" his classroom by taking a more technological approach to his teaching. He posts YouTube videos for students to watch as homework, freeing up more in-class time to discuss the content and make sure students can ask questions about the things they don't understand.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $45,100

Enrollment: 1,700

ECFS students get as much of their education out of the classroom as much as in it. This includes community service out in New York City, non-profit internships, and ethics and philosophy classes.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $45,130

Enrollment: 960

Global travel is a big part of this Episcopalian school's curriculum. Students can spend time studying in Spain, China, Costa Rica, Vietnam, Italy, and Quebec. Trinity's abroad program recently expanded to India and Kenya.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $45,285

Enrollment: 736

Some girls commute as many as three hours to attend the prestigious Upper East Side school. The trip is well worth it though, as many graduates go on to attend Ivy League schools.

Location: Kent, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $45,640

Enrollment: 565

Kent has 25 different sports teams, including three co-ed teams, for 14 different sports. More than half the student body participates in blue and gray athletics.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $45,640

Enrollment: 1,290

CGPS was founded 10 years before Columbia University, and was originally an all-boys school designed to be a college preparatory for Columbia University. The school is now co-ed.

Location: Concord, Massachusetts

Tuition and fees: $46,165

Enrollment: 375

In the last five years, at least 10 students matriculated into top colleges each year, including Columbia, Harvard, NYU, the University of Chicago, and Vanderbilt, among others.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $46,200

Enrollment: 500

BWL recently rolled out a new STEM Initiative that will ready students for a 21st century job market. New electives classes in robotics, field trips, and guest speakers are being incorporated into the curriculum.

Location: Bronx, New York

Tuition and fees: $46,205

Enrollment: 1,779

Horace Mann School owns 83 acres of land in Connecticut that serves as a nature center and laboratory. All students have the opportunity to go up there and study, whether through science class, art class, or overnight team-building trips.

Location: Bronx, New York

Tuition and fees: $46,600

Enrollment: 1,140

Riverdale Country School is a leading member of the Green Schools Alliance, which aims to boost sustainability initiatives among schools and school districts internationally. Students are encouraged to undertake projects that study and implement sustainability at Riverdale.

Location: Lakeville, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $46,705

Enrollment: 600

Hotchkiss has a number of unique traditions that students love to celebrate. For example, the Bow Tie Bowl, a trivia contest founded during the tenure of bow tie-wearing Headmaster Robert A. Oden Jr., pins student/faculty teams against each other in a spirited, quiz bowl-type competition.

Location: New York, New York

Tuition and fees: $47,650

Enrollment: 1,100

Dubbed "the best education money can buy" by The New York Times, Avenues, in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, opened in 2012 and provides an elite education while making parents partners in the process. The school plans to open 20 or more other Avenues campuses around the world where students can seamlessly transfer if, for example, their parents travel for work. Avenues plans to remain headquartered in New York.

Location: Lawrenceville, New Jersey

Tuition and fees: $48,700

Enrollment: 816

For the first time since 2011, The Lawrenceville School is not the most expensive school private school on our list. Tuition and fees for the Jersey school total just under $49,000 but, according to the school's website, the actual cost of a Lawrenceville education is $72,685 year, which includes intimate seminar-style classroom settings, a sophisticated study abroad program, sustainable dining services, and more.

Location: Salisbury, Connecticut

Tuition and fees: $49,092

Enrollment: 310

The Salisbury School is the most expensive private school on our list this year, upending our previous four-year record-holder, The Lawrenceville School.

The all-boys school celebrates a variety of traditions, including twice-weekly sit-down meals with their advisors, hanging holiday greens in the chapel, and lighting a red light in the main building's cupola whenever a varsity team wins a game. A strong sense of community is not the only thing that The Salisbury School has to be proud of — it has a number of rigorous classes such as Mandarin Chinese, entrepreneurial studies, and robotics. Class of 2015 graduates are heading off to Harvard, NYU, and Cornell, among other schools.