Finishing school

A finishing school focuses on teaching young women social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society. The name reflects the fact that it follows ordinary school and is intended to complete a young woman's education by providing classes primarily on deportment, etiquette, and other non-academic subjects. The school may offer an intensive course, or a one-year programme. In the United States, a finishing school is sometimes called a charm school.

Graeme Donald claims that the educational ladies' salons of the late 19th century led to the formal finishing institutions common in Switzerland around that time. At the schools' peak, thousands of wealthy young women were sent to one of the dozens of finishing schools available. A primary goal of such education was to teach students to acquire husbands.

The 1960s marked the decline of the finishing school. This decline can be attributed to the shifting conceptions of women's role in society, to succession issues within the typically family-run schools, and, sometimes, to commercial pressures driven by the high value of the properties that the schools occupied. The 1990s saw a revival of the finishing school, although the business model was radically altered.