A World Comes to Wolfeboro: Inside Brewster’s 2026–27 Community

355 students. 26 states. 27 countries. One extraordinary community on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee.

There is an unmistakable energy at Brewster Academy right now.

You can feel it walking across campus. Dorms are full. Classrooms are busy. Athletic teams are back together. The dining hall is buzzing. Students are walking into downtown Wolfeboro, gathering in the student center, meeting new roommates, finding their advisors, reconnecting with old friends, and making new ones.

At the center of all that energy are 166 new students who have chosen Brewster for the 2026–27 school year.

They are ninth graders beginning their high school experience, students joining Brewster in grades 10, 11, and 12, and postgraduates arriving for one more important year before college. They come from nearby towns and from the other side of the world. Some came to Brewster because of a particular academic interest. Some were drawn by hockey, basketball, soccer, sailing, rowing, or the arts. Some fell in love with the lake and Wolfeboro. Others simply felt something when they visited campus and knew this was where they wanted to be.

Now they are here. And they have joined 189 returning students to create a community of 355 Bobcats, bringing a wonderful sense of momentum to the opening of the school year.

“I think there is something incredibly exciting about seeing our campus so full of life,” said Head of School Kristy Kerin. “Every one of these students brings something different to Brewster. They bring their talents, their experiences, their cultures, their questions, and their aspirations. Then they become part of a community that is deeply invested in knowing them, challenging them, and helping them discover who they can become.”

For the newest Bobcats, that community is already beginning to take shape.

Brandon, a ninth grader who came to Brewster from Seattle, said the welcome was almost immediate.

“Everyone is so welcoming,” he said. “You see random people on campus, and they’ll just, like, dab you up. Everyone’s so nice.”

For Everest, a new ninth grader from Yarmouth, Maine, the first days at Brewster have included good classes, welcoming teachers, and something else that has stood out.

“I met a lot of kids from a lot of different countries, which is really cool,” Everest said, describing new friendships with students from different countries living in the same dorm.

That is happening all over campus.

This year’s 166 new Bobcats have joined a student body that represents 26 U.S. states and 27 countries outside the United States. Students have come to Wolfeboro from New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, and New York, but also from Arizona, California, Texas, Florida, and Wyoming. Others have traveled much farther, arriving from Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Turkey, Kazakhstan, the United Kingdom, Nigeria, Liberia, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and many more places around the world.

That means a student can leave a dorm room in Wolfeboro in the morning and spend the day learning, eating, practicing, competing, and hanging out with people whose lives began in places they may never have visited.

And for new students, those connections are happening remarkably quickly.

One new ninth grader, Leanne from Canada, initially found Brewster because of hockey. But after getting to know the school, her reasons for choosing Brewster became much bigger.

“The main reason was for hockey at first,” Leanne said, “and then I realized how the campus was just so gorgeous, and I just love the community here.”

Within the first few days, that experience already included exploring campus, going downtown, and discovering that one of her new teammates was from Serbia.

That is a story we hear often at Brewster. A student may first discover us because of one particular passion or opportunity. Once here, they find something much larger.

Isabel, a new ninth grader from Maine, was drawn to Brewster by the community and the location.

“It’s so beautiful, and I thought it would be a great choice,” she said.

Only a few days into school, she had already played pool, walked downtown for ice cream, and met students from South Korea, Canada, Europe, and elsewhere around the world.

Another new ninth grader, Maité from Massachusetts, pointed to the sheer number of possibilities available at Brewster.

“I chose to go to Brewster because of all the opportunities, sailing, hockey, rowing, as well as the academics and the community,” Maité said.

What stood out almost immediately was how easy it was to connect with students beyond her own grade. Her assessment of the people she had met was wonderfully straightforward: “the nicest people.”

That interaction between new and returning students is an important part of what makes the opening of this year feel so exciting.

And this is where the numbers begin to mean something much more important.

Brewster’s mission is to prepare diverse thinkers for lives of purpose. That begins with creating a community in which students encounter different ideas, cultures, experiences, talents, and perspectives every day.

But simply bringing students from different places together is not enough.

The Brewster experience is intentionally designed around connection. Through the Brewster Model, we work to know students as individuals, help them discover their strengths and interests, and create opportunities for them to learn with and from one another. Teachers collaborate around students. Advisors know them well. Coaches and dorm parents become important adults in their lives. Returning students welcome new students. And young people who might otherwise never have met begin learning alongside one another.

That is what makes the diversity of this community so powerful.

Students do not simply share a campus with people whose lives and experiences are different from their own. They build relationships with them. They listen to one another, challenge assumptions, discover new perspectives, and begin to understand both themselves and the world around them in new ways.

It happens around a dining table. In a science lab. On an athletic team. In a dorm common room. During a classroom discussion. On a walk into Wolfeboro. And in friendships between students whose lives may have begun thousands of miles apart.

A student from New Hampshire shares a classroom with someone from Japan. A student from Maine lives down the hall from someone from China. An athlete from Canada becomes a teammate of someone from Serbia. They become classmates, roommates, teammates, and friends.

That is not simply a wonderful feature of Brewster. It is fundamental to the education we believe in.

And when Maité was asked what advice she would give another student thinking about Brewster, she managed to capture all of that excitement in two words.

“Do it.”

Then, after a moment, she added one more:

“Enroll.”

Welcome to Brewster, Bobcats. We are so glad you are here.