Georgetown Preparatory School (also known as Georgetown Prep, GP, GPrep or The Yard) is a Jesuit college-preparatory school in North Bethesda, Maryland for boys in ninth through twelfth grade. It has a 93-acre (380,000 square meters) campus which are used for student life (as 7 other acres of the golf coursed were leased to an apartment complex on campus). Legally part of Georgetown University until their separation in 1927, Prep is the only Jesuit boarding school in the United States, one of the oldest U.S. boarding schools still operating, and one of the oldest Catholic schools in the nation.
Georgetown Prep has been associated with numerous influential people since its foundation, with George Washington giving an address to its first graduating class. Alumni of the Yard have included numerous businessmen, politicians, senators, representatives, professional athletes, athletic executives, entertainers, medical researchers and professionals, state and federal judges, Kennedy family members, two Supreme Court Justices, and two recipients of the Medal of Honor.
History
Georgetown Preparatory School was founded in 1789 by John Carroll, the first bishop of Baltimore. It is the oldest existing all-boys school in the United States, with George Washington having addressed its inaugural graduating class. In 1919, the school moved from Georgetown University's campus in the District of Columbia to its current location, under the direction of university president Alphonsus J. Donlon. Georgetown Prep remained part of Georgetown University until its legal separation in 1927.
There are approximately 500 students at Prep, with the boarding students comprising 25% of the school's population (2022–23).
In January 2007, the school opened the Hanley Center for Athletic Excellence. Joe Hills, son of golf course architect Arthur Hills, redesigned and reconfigured the school's signature golf course, which reopened in 2008. The field house was converted into a learning center, which was named after the immediate past president Fr. William L. George, S.J., opened for students on January 26, 2010.
The Campus Center and Residence Building opened in October 2022, which incorporates a health center, communal kitchens, student lounges and modern living quarters for the entire resident population and prefects.
Founding Fr. Carroll believed the new school—Georgetown Academy soon called Georgetown College—would be vital to the future of the Catholic Church in the United States. He saw it as a place that could inspire young men to become priests while also educating Catholic laypeople who could actively contribute to the political and civic life of the new republic.
The school admitted its first student, 13-year-old William Gaston of New Bern, North Carolina, in late 1791. Classes officially began in January 1792, and by June nearly 40 more students from Maryland, Virginia, New York, and Pennsylvania had enrolled. In April of that year, Georgetown welcomed its first international students, Nicholas and Jean Jacques Février from the French West Indies. From the beginning, the college also opened its doors to students from religious backgrounds other than Roman Catholicism.
By 1815, the Society of Jesus had been restored worldwide, and Georgetown had officially become a Jesuit college. That same year, United States Congress granted the school a charter that was signed into law by James Madison.
During Georgetown College's first century, students in the preparatory program greatly outnumbered those enrolled in the college itself. As a result, the institution functioned largely as a preparatory school with a smaller group of college students. In 1855, the Preparatory Building—later called Maguire Hall—opened as the first campus building specifically intended for preparatory students.
Georgetown College, located in the slave state of Maryland, was also connected to the institution of slavery. The Society of Jesus in the Maryland Province owned enslaved people who worked on Jesuit farms in southern Maryland as well as at the college itself. In 1838, 272 of these enslaved men, women, and children were sold to two sugar planters in Louisiana. Part of the money from that sale was loaned to Georgetown College that same year, helping the institution and its preparatory department avoid severe debt and possible closure. The enslaved people forced into this sale have since been described as a coerced “endowment of tears.” Both Georgetown Preparatory School and Georgetown University have acknowledged this history and have sought reconciliation with the descendants of those enslaved by the Jesuits.
Thirty-five years later, Georgetown College was led by Patrick Francis Healy, S.J., who served as rector-president from 1873 to 1882. Healy was the son of an Irish planter in Georgia and an enslaved woman who was considered his common-law wife, though his African ancestry was not widely known at the time. Decades later, in 1953, Georgetown Preparatory School admitted its first African American student, seventh grader Anthony H. Pierce Jr. In 2007, Jeffrey L. Jones became the school's first African American headmaster, serving until 2015 and also acting as president from 2013 to 2014.
During the American Civil War, enrollment at Georgetown College declined sharply as many students—both from the college and the preparatory department—left to fight for either the Union or the Confederacy. John Early, S.J., who served as rector-president from 1858 to 1866, managed to keep the institution operating. He did so partly by building relationships with two members of Abraham Lincoln's cabinet: Secretary of State William H. Seward and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. In 1861–1862, Union troops occupied the strategically located campus, and it was used as a hospital following the Second Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of Antietam.
A little more than a decade after the war ended, students from Georgetown Visitation Academy presented a blue-and-gray banner to the Georgetown College crew team. The colors symbolized the reunion of the former Union and Confederate states after the war. Blue and gray later became the official colors of both the college and its preparatory department.
In the late nineteenth century, the preparatory department began to develop a stronger identity of its own. The growing popularity of team sports—including baseball, football, track, crew, and, beginning in 1907, basketball—helped build pride and school spirit among preparatory students. By the 1889–1890 academic year, the college published a separate catalogue for what it officially called the “Georgetown Preparatory School.”
Student Culture The school frames athletics through the Jesuit language of mind, body, and spirit. That matters because Prep does not present sports as separate from education; it describes athletics as part of forming leadership, discipline, humbleness, selflessness and character. The school's Hoya identity is connected to the broader Georgetown tradition of “Hoya Saxa,” a cheer historically associated with Georgetown athletics and commonly translated as “What Rocks!” The phrase helped shape the use of “Hoyas” as a team name within Georgetown athletic culture. Georgetown Prep has a long-standing athletic rivalry with the Landon School, particularly in sports such as lacrosse.
Athletics The school's athletics department sponsors 33 teams across 17 sports and that the Hoyas won 66 Interstate Athletic Conference championships from 2012 to 2025. Several Prep programs have achieved regional or national prominence.
Georgetown Preparatory School's athletic teams are known as the "Little Hoyas". The lacrosse program, established in 1989, has won multiple IAC titles and was named national champion in 2003 and 2006. Swimming and diving has won 25 consecutive IAC championships, while golf has accumulated 40 league banners and 20 Metro titles. Recent success has also extended to basketball, which won the 2026 IAC championship, and baseball, which won its sixth straight IAC title in 2025.
Lacrosse Georgetown Prep's modern lacrosse program traces its origins to Kevin Giblin, who became the school's first varsity head coach in 1988; the school lists the program as established in 1989. Under Giblin, Prep became one of the Washington area's leading high school lacrosse programs and later a national power. By 1999, Giblin had compiled a 129–42 record and sent more than 30 players to Division I programs. Prep won national championships in 2003 and 2006. The 2003 team went 22–1, won the IAC championship, finished No. 1 nationally, and defeated Landon for the first time in school history. The 2006 team completed a 22–0 season, won the IAC title, defeated Landon 15–3 in the championship game, and finished ranked No. 1 nationally. Giblin recorded his 400th career win in 2013 and resigned in 2014 after 27 years leading the program.
Scott Urick was hired as head coach in 2016. During Urick's tenure, Prep defeated IMG Academy in the first live nationally televised high school lacrosse game in 2017, won the IAC title after an undefeated regular-season conference run in 2019, and won IAC tournament championships in 2021 and 2023. The 2023 team completed a perfect IAC season, defeated Landon for the conference championship, and was ranked No. 6 nationally by USA Lacrosse. In 2025, Georgetown Prep hired Andy Hilgartner, formerly of McDonogh School, as varsity head coach and went onto win the 2026 IAC championship for lacrosse, defeating rival St. Albans 15-6.
Swimming and diving Swimming and Diving could be considered the most dominant program in recent history. Prep says swimming and diving is the winningest program in its athletic department, with 25 consecutive IAC championships, the latest in the 2025–2026 season. The page also says the program has produced more than 100 NISCA All-Americans and has had athletes connected to Olympic Trials for over 20 years.
Golf the 1924 founding by five students, Frank Emmet's role, the 1933 state title, the 1934 Washington Metropolitan and Maryland Schoolboy championships, the 1966 IAC entry, 40 league banners, 20 Metro titles, six Eastern Interscholastic championships, 32 All-Met selections, four Players of the Year, and Bob Barry's 2026 retirement after 43 years, 28 IAC banners, and 643 wins.
Prep's Hall of Fame page supports the Frank Emmet legacy, saying he arrived in 1927, helped start the team, organized junior tournaments, and was a driving force behind the U.S. Junior Amateur. It also records the 1934 team's Maryland and District titles and second-place Eastern Interscholastic finish.
The 1973–75 run, Gus Coupe's coaching, the one-loss-in-three-years claim, and the older Hall of Fame snapshot of Bob Barry's achievements come from Prep's Hall of Fame. The current Barry totals are better taken from the updated official golf page.
For major individual golfers, Prep's Hall of Fame supports details on Frederick Shreves, Michael Mitchell, and Denny McCarthy; USGA also confirms McCarthy's Georgetown Prep connection and 2010 U.S. Junior Amateur quarterfinalist profile.
Recent seasons are supported by independent and official sources: The Washington Post covered the 2018 Metro title, the 2024 All-Met/Coach of the Year honor for Bob Barry, and the 2025 IAC and Metro championships; Prep's 2026 spring wrap-up confirms the eighth straight IAC title and the medal sweep by Jason Park, Daniel Park, and Jose Viega.
Basketball The basketball program won the 2026 IAC championship, completing the first undefeated regular-season title and conference tournament championship in program history. The title was the school's first IAC basketball championship since 2017. The 2025–2026 team was also selected as the No. 1 overall seed in the Maryland Private School State Tournament.
Football