[7] Emma Willard is an independent college-preparatory day and boarding school enrolling students in grades 9–12 and post-graduate studies.

All students must fulfill a community service requirement and take physical education or its equivalent each semester in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades.

The guiding educational philosophy at Emma Willard School is based on three pillars: intellectual flexibility, purpose & community, and equity & justice.

[8] Each student is encouraged to develop fully in all areas of life: as a strong intellectual in a variety of disciplines, as a practitioner of her chosen passions, as a social member of the community, and as a responsible global citizen in her future.

Emma Willard's independent-study program, Practicum, allows students to pursue coursework at area colleges, career internships, community service, and individualized athletic training and competition off-campus for academic credit.

Prior to the school's founding, young women had been unable to pursue the advanced curricular offerings in mathematics, classical languages, and the sciences that were taught to their male counterparts.

In 1819, Willard promoted a comprehensive secondary and post-secondary female educational institution, which would require funding by the State of New York.

However, the New York State legislature at Albany, on hearing her request, responded with mixed sentiment, and ultimately rejected her proposal.

Thereafter, the City's Common Council eventually raised $4,000 that would facilitate Willard's purchase of a suitable flagship building for her proposed seminary for young women.

There, she rented two nondescript long and narrow stone structures, former pre-Colonial Dutch estate's outbuildings in a picturesque setting along the Mohawk River.

The property's border still abuts the Erie Canal's first but long-defunct stone lock, near a major point of the Mohawk's primary arterial confluence into the Hudson River.

However, in early 1821, a critical funds shortage from to a brief economic downturn that had affected the region forced her to close her Waterford Academy.

Willard was able to formally found the Troy Female Seminary "for young ladies of means", becoming "the first school in the country to provide girls the same educational opportunities given to boys".

Willard advocated for publicly supported female seminaries by asserting the necessity of educating as many women as possible in the United States, a task, she pointed out, that was too large for private institutions alone to undertake.

[11] The school was immediately successful, and it graduated many great thinkers, including noted social reformer and suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The three oldest buildings, all of collegiate Gothic style, include a cathedral-like reading room, classrooms, offices, a main auditorium, a dance studio, a lab theater, three residence halls, dining facility, a student center, and a chapel.

Emma Willard has thirteen interscholastic sports teams: badminton, field hockey, soccer, volleyball, tennis, cross country, swimming, diving, basketball, lacrosse, softball, crew, and track (indoor and outdoor).

In April 2017, Emma Willard released a comprehensive report on sexual misconduct by faculty members that spanned almost seven decades.

[30] As a result, the school established the "Healthy Boundaries Initiatives"[31] to address the prevention of and response to sexual misconduct and abuse.

Changes and revisions were made to policies, procedures, and programming, and the school stated its commitment to safety on campus and within the community.