The rolling green lawns of a 12th-century castle, set on a windswept stretch of South Wales coast, usually dotted with sheep, hosted not one but two kings of Europe last weekend.
The purpose of visiting St. Donat’s by the royal families of Spain and the Netherlands was for their daughters to graduate from UWC Atlantic College, a high school housed in a remote castle once owned by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
Under an unusually clear blue sky, Princess Alexia der Nederlanden, 17, smiled Saturday in a white linen trouser suit, flanked by her parents, Queen Maxima and King Willem-Alexander (himself a former Atlantic College student) in a photo posted to Instagram.
Princess Leonor of Asturias, who is also 17 and the heir to the Spanish throne, wore a scarlet blazer dress with buttons and slit sleeves as she posed for selfies with her parents and younger sister Princess Sofia, who will start there in September.
The scene was a reflection of how Atlantic College, part of the United World Colleges group, has become the school of choice for many young royals. It is attracting more and more students who may have once attended more famous places, such as Eton College in the shadow of Windsor Castle or Institut Le Rosey on the edge of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, considered the most expensive boarding school in the world.
Other recent alumni of the school, which trains students for their final two years of high school, include Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, the future Queen of Belgium. She graduated in 2021 and went on to study at Oxford.
The British press has wondered if perhaps the British Royal Family is breaking with tradition and sending its own young heirs to a school that recently trained several future queens of Europe.
One enduring tradition: discretion
While UWC may have more of an updated vibe and curriculum than its more traditional counterparts, it seems to subscribe to at least one very old – and very regal – convention: the art of keeping one’s lips tight. The school did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this article and seems to avoid talking to reporters most of the time.
Tori Cadogan, the education editor of the British magazine Tatler, said Atlantic College’s appeal is largely due to an optimistic ideology rooted in “deliberate diversity” and world peace. The school enrolls many children of royalty and other wealthy families, but there is also a significant number of less privileged students.
Tuition is expensive: about $82,000 for the two-year international baccalaureate program.
However, many students receive financial aid, including a significant cohort who are war victims or refugees on full scholarships. Their applications go to UWC’s national committee, which then assigns the students to Atlantic College campuses around the world, perhaps in Thailand, Costa Rica, Norway or the United States.
Last week, the Dutch royal family announced that Princess Ariane of the Netherlands, the third and youngest daughter of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima, will study at the United World College Adriatic near Trieste, Italy.
Atlantic College opened in 1962 – the height of the Cold War – and the idea of making a diverse student population a priority came from Kurt Hahn (who founded Gordonstoun, King Charles’s alma mater). He decided that a new form of teaching, emphasizing responsibility, internationalism and democracy, was needed to prevent another world war.
A statement on the school’s website says the school’s mission is to “bring together young people from all over the world to create an atmosphere for peaceful coexistence between cultures and nations.”
Leave the Rolex at home
So what does a teenage princess do with her days at Atlantic? According to the “A Day in the Life” section of the school’s website, classes run from 8 a.m. to just after 1 p.m., with afternoons open for community service at local hospitals and schools, as well as activities such as kayaking, archery , planting in the greenhouse or working on the school farm, or even serving on the school’s own lifeboat service. (The widely used Rigid Inflatable Lifeboat was invented by students at the school in the early 1960s, according to the BBC.)
Cell phone reception is said to be atrocious (probably much to the delight of teachers and parents). “EDWs” (excessive displays of wealth) are prohibited, meaning no expensive watches or designer gear.
Louise Callaghan, a former student who is a Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times, wrote a column about her time at the school in 2018. She said it forced many students to “get very used to being around and interacting with people who don’t look like you.”
These included, she wrote, “refugees from West Africa, Britons from across the social spectrum, Californian hippies, Malaysian religious.” Learning to interact with such a diverse group, she said, “is a useful life skill — one that, I don’t think, you learn in a normal private school.”
She also had a more light-hearted view of her time there. Atlantic College, she wrote, was a bit like “a hippie Hogwarts.”
