The School was founded in 1881 by a consortium of nine American universities in collaboration with leading businessmen. Built on land deeded by the Greek government, it was the first American overseas research center, and is now the largest, along with the American Academy in Rome. It is the largest of the fourteen foreign institutes located in Athens. Today the School remains, as its founders envisioned, a privately funded, non-profit educational institution, operating in Greece as a private cultural institution. The school advances knowledge of Greece in all periods, as well as other areas of the classical world, by training young scholars, and graduate students from 170 partner Colleges and Universities of Northern U.S., sponsoring and promoting archaeological fieldwork, providing resources for scholarly work, and disseminating research.
The School was founded in 1881 by a consortium of nine American universities in collaboration with leading businessmen. Built on land deeded by the Greek government, it was the first American overseas research center, and is now the largest, along with the American Academy in Rome. It is the largest of the fourteen foreign institutes located in Athens.