Interested in knowing @ Coding classes at the various prep schools often mentioned on CC. Do some schools offer Coding as part of the Core Curriculum? Is Coding part of your math or science curriculum? Is Coding an elective? Do you find that a large percentage of students come into BS already knowing some Coding?
Tempkid2 took an elective coding class at Hotchkiss. Some kids had prior experience but I don’t thinks that’s common in the general student body.
All CS classes are electives at Andover. Similar to the above, some kids had prior experience, but far from the majority.
FWIW when we toured MPS a couple of years ago, the school was planning on making Coding part of the curriculum for 9th grade.
Coding is not part of the formal curriculum at Choate, but part of the extensive (elective) CS offerings. CS was the focus of ChoatieKid’s evaluation of boarding schools during his application process, but he only had time in his schedule for one of those courses, unfortunately. (WARNING: Crew is the biggest time suck there is.) He self-studied CS topics and taught himself a couple of languages along the way, mostly over the summers. We were sure he’d major in CS in college but, by the time he got there, he placed out of so much of the CS curriculum, he decided on electrical engineering with an emphasis on robotics. Coding (game development) is still his favorite pastime, though.
Certainly, some kids come into BS with coding experience (lots of summer camps for that), but I think many schools see the wisdom of offering a substantial CS curriculum to our increasingly tech-savvy kids. Choate completed the Lanphier Center for Mathematics and Computer Science the semester before ChoatieKid graduated:
https://www.choate.edu/academics/academic-facilities/lanphier-center
The Choate math department is the “Math and Computer Science Department,” and a (very popular) introduction to programming course teaches students “the basics of algorithmic thinking” through Python. The department also offers machine learning and application development courses. Any student interested in computer science should take a look at Choate’s facilities and offerings (and avoid crew if they want to have time for electives or a life).
CS classes are electives at Thacher. It is my understanding that students help write the code that runs the Thacher Observatory and the programs that crunch the Observatory data.
Cheshire Academy has a fabulous coding program.
You’re required to take one term of computer science at Exeter. My son took “Algorithms and Public Policy” and was surprised at how much coding it involved. It’s not a field that interests him at all, but he luckily came from a middle school that required 2 years of coding, so he was able to hold his own. I got the sense that students’ background knowledge varied widely, even in a course that was not inteded for CS folks (akin to the “Physics for Poets” class I took as an undergrad 
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George has very cool coding classes, but alas, all electives!
As with most BS, they offer an intellectual feast, but one person’s plate can hold only do much!
Peddie has comp sci classes, though they are electives.
Of course, coding is also used for the robotics teams and in different clubs.
There is currently a push to integrate more problem solving/exposer to coding etc interdepartmentally across the curriculum in addition to the electives. For example, there might be a python coding project in relation to geometry concepts being learned or a discussion of google’s algorithms in relation to a lesson on matrices.
SPS has several coding classes as well as courses in robotics, artificial intelligence and engineering.
@ChoatieMom That was one of the main reasons I applied to Choate