Dover, MA Tier 1

Tier 1 · top schools · 15 miles from downtown Boston, about 44 minutes door-to-door at peak · 93% of households own their home.

Dover, Massachusetts
Dover · photo via Wikipedia
4BR house
$2M
$1.3M townhouse · $960k condo
Dearer than 96% of MA towns
Property tax
$24,000/yr
$12.00 per $1,000 on that house
Higher than 96% of MA towns
To downtown Boston
44 min
No MBTA rail
Closer than 78% of MA towns
Schools
95th pct
growth 52nd · 98% graduate
Ahead of 95% of MA districts

marks the Massachusetts median of $750k for a 4BR, $9,100 in tax and 62 min to Boston. Prices and the tax bill are estimates, not appraisals.

About Dover

Dover is a top-tier school district south-west of Boston, about 15 miles from downtown Boston as the crow flies and 44 minutes door-to-door at peak, and one of the priciest markets in the state: roughly $2M for a 4BR house and $960k for a 2BR condo. The residential rate is $12.00 per $1,000, about average for Massachusetts, but on a $2M house that is still about $24,000 a year. There is no MBTA rail here, so the commute is by car. The district sits in the 95th percentile statewide on MCAS, and Niche ranks it 5th of 236. Semi-rural estates and a tiny, high-performing regional district shared with Sherborn.

The good, the bad, the ugly

Editorial
Good

Semi-rural estates and the small, high-performing Dover-Sherborn regional district.

Bad

$2M for a 4BR and no rail, no downtown, and no commercial tax base.

Ugly

One-acre minimum zoning and no sewer mean the town is effectively closed to new housing.

Schools and child caretop schools · 95th MCAS · 2 schools

Public elementary & middle schools

2 public schools in Dover — 1 elementary and 1 middle
ElementaryPK–5 · 457 students
Middle6–8 · 459 students

These are assigned by address, not chosen. A regional district’s schools appear on every member town’s page. Charters are public but allocated by lottery, and are listed separately below.

DESE 2025–26 enrolment report

Before kindergarten

Licensed programs 4 center-based · 0 family child care4
Licensed places, all ages The ceiling these programs may operate to152
Places in centers Commercial premises, licensed room by room152
Places in family child care A provider’s own home, mixed ages together0
Infant & toddler places in centers Age bands ending under three; family programs are not broken down9
Preschool places in centers Roughly 33 months to kindergarten135

Licensed capacity is not availability. These are places programs may operate, not vacancies. The age split covers centers only — family programs report no breakdown, so 9 is a floor on infant care here, not a count of it.

MA Dept. of Early Education and Care, pulled 2026-08-02 · search current openings

Public School Rankings

Publisher rankingResult
Niche 2026 · Best School Districts#5 of 236 MA districts · A+
SchoolDigger 2025 · City/locality test-score rank#6 of 361 MA localities
U.S. News 2025-26 · Assigned high school#11 of 366 MA · Dover-Sherborn Regional High School
Boston Magazine 2025 · Greater Boston high school#1 of 135 · Dover-Sherborn Regional High School
Official Massachusetts data (DESE)Result
MCAS achievement95th percentile statewide
Student growth (SGP)52nd percentile
4-year graduation rate98.1%
DESE accountabilityMeeting or exceeding targets

Each publisher ranks a different thing. A district, a locality, or one high school, each by its own method — shown separately, never blended.

MCAS percentile is the district’s statewide rank on % Meeting/Exceeding expectations, ELA + Math.

School building projects: No major full-school construction or comprehensive rebuild with a published total project budget was located in the live MSBA, municipal, school-project, contractor, and local-news review completed in July 2026. This does not mean no school capital work occurred.

Available Private School Options

18 private schools in Dover and within 12 miles
In DoverAISNE accreditedPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 190 students · 4.9:1 student-teacher · ~$32k–$45k/yr (est.)
Montrose SchoolNiche #60 · A+
Adjacent town · MedfieldNEASC accreditedK–12 · PK/K–12 · files no enrolment with the state
Adjacent town · WestwoodNEASC accredited7–12 · Middle / high · 981 students · 13.3:1 student-teacher · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NeedhamNEASC accredited7–12 · Middle / high · 397 students · ~$18k–$28k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NeedhamPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 380 students · 12.6:1 student-teacher · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NeedhamK–8 · Elementary / middle · 107 students · ~$10k–$20k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Needham1–8 · Elementary / middle · 73 students · 4.8:1 student-teacher · ~$32k–$45k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NeedhamK–3 · Elementary · 8 students · ~$18k–$30k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NatickAISNE accreditedPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 195 students · ~$32k–$45k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · Natick3–12 · PK/K–12 · 54 students · ~$38k–$50k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NatickK–12 + SP · Specialized / placement · 28 students · placement/specialized
Adjacent town · NatickAISNE accredited9–12 · High school · files no enrolment with the state
Dana HallNiche #24 · A+
Adjacent town · WellesleyAISNE accredited5–12 · Middle / high · 452 students · 8.5:1 student-teacher · ~$40k–$52k/yr (est.) · ~$70k/yr boarding
Adjacent town · WellesleyAISNE accreditedPK–6 · Elementary / middle · 205 students · 4.7:1 student-teacher · ~$32k–$45k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · WellesleyPK–6 · Elementary / middle · 170 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · WellesleyNEASC accreditedPK–12 · PK/K–12 · files no enrolment with the state
Noble and GreenoughNiche #4 · A+
Adjacent town · DedhamNEASC accredited7–12 · Middle / high · 635 students · 5.1:1 student-teacher · ~$36k–$50k/yr (est.)
Adjacent town · NorwoodPK–8 · Elementary / middle · 403 students · ~$8k–$15k/yr (est.)

Tuition is an estimated range by school type, not school-published pricing — a parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently. Private schools sit no MCAS, so no figure here is a state measure.

How to read this list

Schools within 12 miles of Dover, from the MA DESE 2025–26 non-public enrollment report plus the Niche ranking of Massachusetts private high schools. Tuition shown as an estimated range by school type, grades and region — not school-published pricing. A parochial school and an independent day school are priced very differently, so treat these as a starting point and confirm with the school. Niche ranks private high schools only, so an elementary school never carries a number; where one shows a letter instead, that is Niche’s own overall grade, which reaches schools no ranked list does. Neither is a state measure — private schools sit no MCAS and report no results to Massachusetts. That Niche extract is also partial, so a school showing neither was not judged and found wanting; it may simply not have been in it. Student numbers are the figure schools do report, from the same DESE return. Where a student-teacher ratio is shown it is students over full-time-equivalent teachers in the federal Private School Universe Survey, 2021–22, the most recent published — a rough guide to class size, not a class size, and not a ranking either. It is shown only where that survey and the state agree on how many pupils the school has, which is why many schools here have none. Accreditation comes from the AISNE member directory, which records whether a school holds AISNE or NEASC accreditation — the two split the work by age rather than compete, AISNE taking the elementary and middle schools and NEASC the secondary ones. It means an outside body has reviewed the school against published standards on a ten-year cycle. It is not a measure of results, and its absence is not a mark against a school: plenty are not members at all. That directory is also where the schools marked files no enrolment with the state come from. They are real schools that simply make no return to Massachusetts, so the state holds no size for them and this page can show none — and for those, the grade range is read off AISNE’s age bands rather than taken from the school, so treat it as approximate and confirm with the school.

The vibe of Dover

High-cost suburbsQuiethigh confidence

Very quiet, rural/spread out, and extensively provided with recreation programs, playgrounds and athletic fields; high-cost in housing, upscale in commercial districts, and extensively maintained in public realm, with limited cultural offerings, mostly residential, and limited gathering places.

Energy2
Compact town center2
Family amenities7
Culture4
Visitor presence2
Public gathering places4

Six 1–10 scales for the intensity of each quality, not a score of how good the place is. Higher just means more of that thing. Family amenities counts public recreation infrastructure, not who lives here; these never use race, ethnicity or other protected characteristics, and never measure safety. See the methodology.

What it takes to live here$2M 4BR · ≈$24,000 tax
To buyMedian price (est.)
4BR / 2BA detached house$2M
3BR / 2BA townhouse$1.3M
2BR condo$960k
Property taxes (FY2026)$12.00 per $1,000 (1.20%)

These are modeled estimates, not listings. Each row opens the real Redfin market in ZIP 02030, and the two will not match.

To rentPer month (est.)
4 bedrooms$4,343/mo
3 bedrooms$3,937/mo
2 bedrooms$3,280/mo
1 bedroom$2,763/mo

These are benchmark rents, not asking rents. HUD sets them at the 40th percentile of standard-quality units, so a nice single-family will ask more — which is why the links are not capped at the figure beside them.

HUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents for Dover’s ZIP codes

Home values over the last decade

Dover home values, 2016–2026Zillow Home Value Index for Dover, 2016 to 2026: $1.10M to $1.82M, up 65 per cent.$1.02M$1.46M$1.90M20162026
Dover, 2016 to 2026: $1.10M to $1.82M, up 65% in 10 years — 5.1% a year compounded.
If a $2.00M house grew at…5 yrs10 yrs15 yrs30 yrs
5.1% — Dover’s own last decade$2.56M$3.29M$4.22M$8.89M
3% — inflation, holding its real value$2.32M$2.69M$3.12M$4.85M

These are not forecasts. They are what $2.00M becomes at a fixed rate, shown for two rates because nobody can tell you which one the next thirty years will bring. The last decade included a period of unusually fast growth across Massachusetts; repeating it for thirty years would be a strong assumption. The inflation row is the conservative case — a house that holds its value and earns nothing beyond it. History from the Zillow Home Value Index, a whole-town index that sits at a different level from the 4BR estimate above and is used here for the trend.

What’s around Dover

rural392 people per square mile across 15.1 sq mi rural — under 500 people per square mile

What’s hereCount
Cafés and coffee shops0
Bookshops0
Museums, theatres and galleries0
Colleges and universities0
Public libraryDover Town Library

Density is Census population over land area. Café, bookshop and culture counts are what is mapped in OpenStreetMap — a volunteer map, so a well-mapped town looks busier than a thinly-mapped one. Read a low count as “little mapped here”, not “nothing here”. Colleges are active degree-granting institutions in the federal IPEDS directory; enrolment and campus housing capacity are its 2023 figures. The public library comes from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners, which lists library systems rather than every branch. These figures describe places, never the people in them — see our methodology.

Census snapshot
ACS 2019–2023 (via MAPC DataCommon)Share
Homeowner households93%
White (non-Hispanic)81%
Asian (non-Hispanic)9.0%
Latino / Hispanic4.0%
African American (non-Hispanic)1.0%
These figures are neutral census facts, shown for every town equally. They are never used to filter, rank, or recommend towns — see our methodology and the federal Fair Housing Act.

Town spending & civic data

DoverFigure
Residents5,923
Municipal budgetFY2025, DLS Schedule A$43.6M
School district spendingDover-Sherborn district$30.2M
Spending per pupil DESE, total expenditures$26,166
School spending per resident$5,092
Affordable housing units (Ch. 40B inventory)260

Dover-Sherborn is a regional district, so the school spend covers every member town, not just this one.

Budget: FY2025 General Fund total expenditures, DLS Schedule A · Schools: DESE Per Pupil Expenditure · Affordable units: state Subsidized Housing Inventory. Never used to rank or filter towns.

Realistic alternatives to Dover

SudburyTier 1
Also Tier 1, about $300k cheaper
SherbornTier 1
Also Tier 1, about $500k cheaper
LincolnTier 1
Also Tier 1, about $500k more expensive
WaylandTier 1
Also Tier 1, about $400k cheaper
ConcordTier 1
Also Tier 1, $2.2M for a 4BR and 47 min to Boston

Surprisingly similar in character

SouthboroughTier 1
Both well-equipped for recreation · $750k cheaper
BoxboroughTier 1
Both quiet and spread out · $1.05M cheaper
WestonTier 1
Both well-equipped for recreation · $900k dearer

Read next

Test scores tell you who moved in. Growth tells you what the school did.
Scores in the 95th percentile but moves children in the 52nd — the intake flatters this district.
7 min read
The state already grades every district. It costs $950,000 to buy into the top of it.
The state's own determination for this district is "meeting or exceeding targets" — one of only 25 towns on its top rung, and none of them is cheap.
7 min read
The child care near you depends on what your town costs
Every licensed child care program here is a center — not one is family child care, in a state where two programs in three are somebody's home.
7 min read
A school rating is an average. Of how many schools?
The district is two schools, so its rating is a promise about the exact building your child would attend.
6 min read
Data statusSome figures preliminary · reviewed August 14, 2026
FigureStatus
Home pricesCalibrated to the Zillow Home Value Index and Redfin market pages. For comparison, not appraisal.Preliminary
Property tax rateFY2026 residential rate per $1,000, from municipal assessor and treasurer pages.Preliminary
RentsHUD FY2026 Small Area Fair Market Rents, by ZIP.Sourced
School dataDESE published state reports. Publisher ranks carry their own edition and denominator. The school tier is editorial.Sourced
CommuteRail times for the 75 towns we could verify against the MBTA's published timetable are real scheduled journeys, transfers included. Where a town has rail but no verified journey, its rail time is modeled too, and the town page says so. Driving is modeled from distance with corridor adjustments, and station access is a flat allowance. Not measured by a routing API.Measured + modeled

This community was added after the original hundred, so its prices and tax rate are preliminary estimates pending verification against municipal and census records. Data last reviewed . Full detail on every source is in the methodology.

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