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Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Private school · Bellevue, King County · grades 5-12 · Catholic (Sacred Heart network, independent)

Snapshot

K-12 enrollment
220
SBE-reported, 2024-25
Tuition (top division)
$48,400
2026-27, school-published
Student-teacher ratio
7.1:1
NCES PSS, 2021-22
Teachers (FTE)
44
NCES PSS, 2021-22

Identity and approval

Campus
Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart, 4800 139th Ave SE, Bellevue 98006
Host public district
Bellevue School District
Grades
5-12
Religious affiliation
Catholic (Sacred Heart network, independent)
Coed / single-sex
girls
Accreditation
NWAIS
Website
https://www.forestridge.org
WA SBE approval
2026-27 (state-approved private school)
Profit status
Nonprofit

Enrollment

56789101112
1224313532302630

Enrollment by grade, 2024-25 school year, as reported to the WA State Board of Education.

Tuition and financial aid

Annual tuition
$48,400 (2026-27)
By division / fees
Grade 5 $39,900; grades 6-8 $47,400; Upper School $48,400.
Financial aid
28% of families receive aid; over $1.7M awarded; awards range $3,200-$41,970.

Source: the school's own tuition page · aid page, observed 2026-07-03. Tuition changes annually, verify before applying.

Academics

Curriculum
Neither AP nor IB on current academics pages; senior Advanced Integrated Studies + endorsement pathways.
College matriculation
Publishes college stats; 75% of Class of 2025 attending out of state.
Washington private schools are not required to publish state assessment results, and this school's internal test data is not public. Unlike the public-school pages on this site, no score comparison is possible here, treat curriculum labels and matriculation lists as the available evidence.

Student demographics

Asian
37%
Black
6%
Hispanic
8%
White
35%

NCES Private School Universe Survey, 2021-22 (the most recent federal collection). Private-school demographics are reported biennially and lag public-school data.

Research dossier

Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Independent Catholic girls' school on Somerset Hill in Bellevue · grades 5-12 · 220 students (Washington State Board of Education, 2024-25) · the Pacific Northwest's only Sacred Heart network school, accredited by the Northwest Association of Independent Schools (NWAIS), with a small residential boarding cohort

The verdict

Forest Ridge asks families to make two unfashionable bets at once. The first is the obvious one: that an all-girls environment produces more academic risk-taking and leadership reps than a coed school. The second is quieter and matters more for college planning. There is no Advanced Placement (AP) and no International Baccalaureate (IB) here; third-party records suggest an IB designation around 2011 that has since been decommissioned. In their place the school runs a proprietary six-module block schedule, elective two-year "Endorsement Pathways," and a senior research capstone. That trade buys depth and calm, but it also makes the transcript illegible without the counseling office's translation. Then add the fact a tour won't volunteer: the state roster shows 220 students against 316 in the 2021-22 federal survey, a roughly 30% contraction in three years, with just 12 fifth graders enrolled in 2024-25. A girl who wants to captain, edit, and found things will find open lanes everywhere here. Families who want AP scores as insurance, big-team competition in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), or certainty about cohort scale should scrutinize hard. And non-Catholic families, the majority as it happens, should know that religious participation carries no opt-out.

Researched 2026-07-04. Citations and claim ledger included in the full dossier.

That is the free excerpt. The full dossier covers what the school's own marketing won't: admissions mechanics and real selectivity, all-in cost and aid behavior, matriculation depth, culture and fit signals, institutional health, every claim cited and dated. Unlock it for $9, or get a $29 Research Pass with 3 dossiers included.

The real comparison is against your public options.

Tuition here runs five figures a year, the question is what it buys over the public schools your address already gives you. A $29 Research Pass unlocks score trends, peer percentiles, competition evidence, gifted-pathway detail, and PTA capacity on every public school in the region, plus 3 full research dossiers for the schools on your shortlist.

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Sources

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