[3][4] Moody initially envisioned the schools as a source of terminal education; in the early days, some of the students were in their thirties.

[5] The schools offered separate programs of study to accommodate their student body's varying goals.

[7][8] In the early days, most Mount Hermon students enrolled in the ministerial program, whose curriculum was designed to be sufficiently rigorous that a graduate could "enter the ministry or a related field without further formal education.

"[8] An Evangelical preacher, D. L. Moody sought "to provide a Christian education for [students] of high purpose and limited means.

[26] During the Great Depression, many Americans proved unable to pay even the Northfield schools' relatively low tuition fees.

(D. L. Moody was harshly criticized for his failure to oppose the emerging segregation movement when visiting the South in 1876; he founded Northfield Seminary three years later.

[34][35] One of Mount Hermon's first graduates, Thomas Nelson Baker Sr., was a freed slave who became the first African-American to obtain a PhD in philosophy in the United States.

[36] Several notable black lawyers attended the Northfield schools in the 1940s and 1950s, including judges William C. Pryor and Anna Diggs Taylor[37] and civil rights attorney James Nabrit III, who argued (and won) Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education.

[42][43] At Mount Hermon's first commencement in 1887, one student addressed the audience "in his native language, for the representatives of the Sioux, Shawnee, and Alaskan tribes in the school.

[48] They have educated students from Asia since at least 1886;[49] and Chan Loon Teung, class of 1892, was Harvard's first Chinese graduate.

[36][50] Pixley Seme, the founder and president of the African National Congress, graduated from NMH in 1902.

[54][55] The school explained that it wanted to reduce its high operating costs, including faculty salaries and the expenses of running two campuses.

[61] The campaign was supported by the largest gift in school history, from a former Mount Hermon valedictorian and scholarship student.

[76] In recent years, NMH's postgraduate program has become a popular option for students seeking to bolster their academic and athletic resumes before applying to college.

[77] In 2014, the Harvard Crimson wrote that NMH "has become the standard layover destination for [postgraduate basketball] players in the Ivy League.

"[78] (The previous year, 47.7% of Ivy League men's basketball players had prep school experience.