From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishpreparatory schoolpreˈparatory ˌschool noun [countable] 1 SESa private school in Britain for children between the ages of 8 and 132 SESa private school in the US that prepares students for college
Examples from the Corpus
preparatory school• Undismayed, she sent me to a first-class crammer for two terms, and Brian to another preparatory school.• I was then sent to an ordinary preparatory school for boys.• Her family, like mine, was a respectable working-class one, her father being the groundsman at a private preparatory school. 