[4] This dual oversight was supposed to ensure that the Black nursing school was equal to its counterpart for Whites.

[2] However, students at St. Philip School faced different societal obstacles such as racism from doctors and had inadequate equipment and overcrowded housing.

[2] Three students completed their training in 1923—Bessie Conway, Adelaide Royster Thomas and Helena Bell Wooldridge.

[5] One of the school's traditions included a candlelight capping ceremony, marking the completion of the preclinical portion of the curriculum.

The school moved to the newly constructed St. Philip Hall on 12th and Marshall Street in Richmond in September 1931.

[2][9][12] The five story St. Philip Hall included classrooms, a laboratory, recreational space, a library, and an auditorium, with dormitories for 94 students above.

[2][12] The building and its equipment cost $160,000 ($3,205,602 in 2023 money), paid for by a $80,000 grant from the General Education Board, $40,000 from the Rosenwald Fund, and $40,000 from the Medical College of Virginia.

[15] The school had a chapter of Chi Eta Phi professional nursing sorority, founded in 1957.