A reader’s guide to the Independent School League (ISL)

The Independent School League (ISL) is an athletic league of 16 independent schools in New England. It is one of the leagues listed by the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC). This guide explains what the ISL is, which schools are in it, and where to find official information.

Member schools

The ISL's official athletic directors directory for the 2025–26 school year lists these 16 schools:

• Belmont Hill School
• Brooks School
• Buckingham Browne & Nichols School
• The Governor’s Academy
• Groton School
• Lawrence Academy
• Middlesex School
• Milton Academy
• Noble and Greenough School
• The Rivers School
• The Roxbury Latin School
• St. George’s School
• St. Mark’s School
• St. Sebastian’s School
• Tabor Academy
• Thayer Academy

NEPSAC's list of leagues and conferences shows the same 16 schools under the ISL. Membership can change, so check the league's own site for the current list.

ISL, NEPSAC and the MIAA are separate

Many Greater Boston families follow both public-school and independent-school sports, and the two systems are easy to confuse.

• The MIAA (Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association) governs most Massachusetts public high school athletics and publishes official power rankings for its tournaments. See our guide to official MIAA power rankings.
• NEPSAC is the association for New England independent and prep schools, and the ISL is one of the leagues listed within it.
• MIAA power rankings do not cover ISL schools. An ISL team's season, league results and any postseason play run through the ISL and NEPSAC, not the MIAA.

Finding current results

The ISL website has pages for individual sports. When we checked on October 5, 2026, the football page mostly showed older stories, and its standings link went to a third-party vendor page. For that reason we don't present ISL standings, scores or rankings here. For current results, check the ISL site, NEPSAC, or the athletics pages of the schools involved, and look at the date on any result you find.

What we will and won't publish

We'll add ISL coverage to this section only when it can be sourced to official league, school or reputable media reports, with links. We don't invent scores, standings, rankings or recruiting news, and we don't claim to have attended events we didn't cover in person.