St Mary’s Academy

Lady Blues, show your pride!
Yes, I am an alumnus of the great St. Mary’s Academy (SMA) – the only all-women’s college preparatory school on the West Coast – class of 2003.
I think it’s safe for us all to say that we have memories from our golden years, whether they be good or bad. Thankfully, 98.6 percent of my memories of good ol’ SMA are very fond.
From the spirituality of the Encounter retreat (ask me sometime!) to Ms. Gorman’s STD slideshow (the cauliflower penis scarred us all) and falling off the Ark, those four years were great.
I remember Sister Linda (the Prez of Student Affairs) would walk through crowded SMA dances, and separate girls from their dates who were dancing too provocatively, telling them to leave room for the Holy Spirit. And if you were caught again, you were taken to the cool-​down room, where Mr. Hemmen (a religion teacher) would kindly lecture you. Obviously, *I* never made it that far.
For a full list of SMA oddities, just check out the Facebook group [
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While SMA wasn’t the school for everyone (i.e., the extremely boy crazy, and the ones whose parents forced them to go there), I thought it was the perfect place for me. It definitely fostered my growth as an intelligent and well-​rounded person, and the teachers and staff never treated us like kids, even though we were in our teens. And I have to say that I feel I received an A++ education that TOTALLY prepared me for university. I mean, when I went to college, I had LESS homework than during SMA, and my classes were way EASIER than my high school ones. Pow! Take that!
They taught me how to stand up for myself and how to get involved and ask questions. When I went to college, I was surprised to see that not many people were vocal like I was.
Oh, and St. Mary’s does not have uniforms (common misconception), and last time I checked they have the most liberal dress code of all the Portland private schools. Yes, you can wear flip-​flops (Central Catholic doesn’t allow that)!
And SMA is right downtown. I took Tri-​Met to school every day for four years! And because it’s not a huge campus, you can leave the grounds for lunch after your freshman year. AWESOME.
The teachers rock, the students rock, and they offer good financial aid packages. And I like the aid program they’ve got going on: For every $ 100 they give you in aid, the student has to do one hour of service work. It totally got me involved during my time.
Oh, and no one’s mascot has anything on SMA’s (Laura N… that means your poet, too!): It’s a blue music note. Ha!
I’ve got nothing but love for this place.
Send your baby girls here.