North Shore Country Day School offers a liberal arts education with students representing the community's values of respect and inclusiveness.

[citation needed] In 1893, Francis King Cook opened the Rugby School for Boys in the nearby village of Kenilworth.

As a progressive country day school, there was to be an enriched core curriculum with independent study.

[13][14] The school sought to fit the curriculum to the students' needs rather than to require a fixed course of instruction.

Notable alumni of North Shore in the arts include Richard Appel (1981), executive producer and co-showrunner for Family Guy[29]; Richard Marx (1981), Grammy Award-winning musician and the first solo artist to have his first seven singles hit the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart;[30] Pete Wentz (1997), the bassist, lyricist, and backup vocalist for Fall Out Boy; John R. MacArthur (1974), President and Publisher of Harper's Magazine;[31] Alex Moffat (2000), a Saturday Night Live cast member;[32] and Jonathan Strong (1962), a critically acclaimed novelist.

[33] In sports, North Shore is represented by Jereme Richmond (attended for one year), former shooting guard for the Delaware 87ers and gold medalist with the United States team in the 2010 FIBA Americas Under-18 Championship;[34] Peter Callahan (2009), an All-American and seven-time Ivy League title-winning middle distance runner while at Princeton University;[35] William C. Bartholomay (1946), an insurance executive and the former owner of the Atlanta Braves responsible for moving them from Milwaukee;[36] Michael Reinsdorf (1985), President of the Chicago Bulls;[37] and Rocky Wirtz (1971), billionaire owner of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks.

[38] North Shore alumni who played a role in politics include John Macy (1934), former Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom;[39] Garrett Muscatel (attended for one year), member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from the Grafton 12th district and youngest openly LGBT politician in the country;[40][41] James L. Oakes (1941), former Vermont Attorney General and Chief Justice of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit;[42] and Aaron Swartz (attended, but did not graduate), an internet activist, co-founder of Reddit and member of the RSS development team.

[43][44] In the sciences, North Shore is represented by Katherine Sanford (1933), an American cell biologist and developer of the first lab test for Alzheimer's disease;[45] Francis Daniels Moore (1931), a former Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and member of the first surgical team to perform a human organ transplant;[46] and Anne Young (1965), former Chief of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and current Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.