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When Girls are at the center of the educational experience, remarkable things happen.

At an all-girls school, every classroom discussion, leadership opportunity, athletic team, performance, tradition, and program is intentionally designed with girls in mind. Girls are encouraged to speak up. To take intellectual risks. To discover new interests. To lead. And to imagine themselves in roles and fields where women have historically been underrepresented.

Research into girls' school education demonstrates meaningful advantages in areas including academic engagement, confidence, leadership, STEM participation, belonging, and future aspirations.

At St. Mary Academy – Bay View, we see those advantages come to life every day. For more than 150 years, Bay View has created a learning environment where girls and young women are encouraged to discover not only what they can accomplish, but who they can become.

At Bay View, she can.

Girls show paint on their hands to demonstrate their hard work.

The Research Behind the All-Girls Advantage

The International Coalition of Girls' Schools identifies five interconnected areas in which girls' schools make a meaningful difference:

Agency. Belonging. Leadership. Limitless Achievement. Global Readiness.

Research highlighted by ICGS finds that students attending girls' schools demonstrate greater academic engagement, confidence, leadership development, and aspirations.

But the advantage of an all-girls education is about more than outcomes.

It is about what happens every day when girls learn in a community where their voices, experiences, abilities, and ambitions are at the center.

Girl looks dreamily near RI State House.

Confidence & Agency

She Learns That Her Voice Matters

In an all-girls classroom, every seat is hers. She asks questions, shares ideas, leads discussions, and learns to trust her voice.

At Bay View, that confidence grows from the earliest grades as students learn to advocate for themselves and take ownership of their learning.

An all-girls education gives her space to find her voice. Bay View gives her opportunities to use it.

Leadership

She doesn't just see women leading, she experiences leadership herself.

At a girls’ school, every leadership opportunity is hers. Student leaders, team captains, club presidents, performers, mentors, and service leaders are all girls.

At Bay View, students see leadership modeled from an early age and discover opportunities to lead themselves.

As a Mercy school, we teach that leadership means more than confidence—it means listening, serving, collaborating, and advocating for others.

Here, leadership isn't something she waits to experience. She practices it now.

Girls of all ages look at anatomage table.

STEM without Limitations

She sees herself as the scientist, engineer, mathematician, and innovator.

In an all-girls environment, girls aren't watching someone else take the lead in the laboratory.

They are taking the lead.

At Bay View, STEM learning begins early and grows through hands-on experimentation, investigation, design, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Through spaces like the Barbara A. Papitto Center for Excellence in STEM, students apply what they learn and see themselves as capable innovators.

The message is never that STEM could be for her. It already is.

Girl looks confidently at camera while studying.

Academic Ambition

She learns to challenge herself.

At a girls’ school, curiosity, ambition, and academic achievement are celebrated—and students learn to embrace challenges rather than fear them.

At Bay View, students are encouraged to ask better questions, think critically, explore their interests, and take on increasingly challenging opportunities.

The goal isn't perfection. It’s building the confidence to try, make mistakes, learn, and try again.

She discovers how much she is capable of when she stops wondering whether she belongs in the room.

Athletics

She finds her strength.

Girls’ athletics are a central part of school life. Students compete, lead, support one another, and learn to respond to challenges as part of a team.

They see girls celebrated as athletes and leaders, giving younger students the opportunity to imagine themselves in those roles, too.

Through athletics, she builds confidence, resilience, and a lasting sense of what she can accomplish.

Young girl is lady bug costume smiles as she walks through a crowd of older girls giving her high fives.

Creativity & Expression

She takes center stage.

Students have the space to experiment creatively, express themselves, and discover new interests without worrying about fitting into someone else’s expectations.

Through visual arts, music, theater, performance, and design, students have opportunities to create, collaborate, and share their work.

Some will discover lifelong passions. Others will discover talents they never knew they had.

An all-girls environment gives her the freedom to explore who she is and who she can become.

girls smile together around a picnic table doing crafts

Belonging & Sisterhood

She can discover and be herself.

At Bay View, students are known, valued, and connected to a community where they can learn, take risks, and grow with confidence.

Our students bring different personalities, perspectives, talents, interests, and aspirations to the Academy. One may find belonging on the stage, another on the field, and another in a classroom, lab, studio, or student organization.

There is no single way to belong or to be a Bay View girl.

She has the space to discover who she is and who she wants to become

girls look out over Italian canal

Global Readiness

She learns that her voice has a place in the wider world.

Students are encouraged to look beyond themselves and engage with people, cultures, ideas, and challenges beyond our community.

Our Mercy identity deepens that perspective. Through the Mercy Critical Concerns and our global Mercy community, students consider questions of justice, dignity, compassion, service, and responsibility.

They learn to think beyond what they can accomplish and consider how they can make a difference.

She graduates with both confidence in her voice and a sense of responsibility for how she uses it.

Preparing her for what comes next.

The Advantage Lasts Long After Graduation.

An all-girls education shapes not only what she learns, but what she believes is possible for her future.

At Bay View, she graduates having already practiced speaking up, taking on challenges, collaborating, leading, and discovering strengths she may not have known she possessed.

She leaves with the confidence to pursue what comes next and a connection to generations of Bay View alumnae carrying those experiences into colleges, careers, communities, and lives around the world.

What she experiences at Bay View stays with her long after she graduates.

For more than 150 years, St. Mary Academy – Bay View has believed in the transformative power of educating girls and young women.

Research helps explain the advantage.

Our students show us what it looks like.

At Bay View, She Can.

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