<p>Would like your thoughts on Pingry vs Delbarton for high school experience.</p>
<p>They are very different. One is single sex and one is co-ed. One has a heavily religious component, the other does not. Both have great campuses and athletics. Both do well in college preparation and admissions. They do look and feel very different so a visit may help you choose.</p>
<p>Delbarton has awesome LAX!</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.laxpower.com/update09/binboy/XDELNJ.PHP[/url]”>http://www.laxpower.com/update09/binboy/XDELNJ.PHP</a></p>
<p>I have a daughter, so we have never considered Delbarton for our family, but it has an excellent reputation within the area that it draws from. Pingry is also highly regarded in a fairly broad section of NJ. Pingry has rigorous academics and a very full athletic program. Even for kids who thought they were non athletes, most play at least one sport. There are many jv teams that have openings for freshmen. There is a lot of HW, papers and tests. The teachers are generally good, and are very available to students. The students are generally respectful to teachers AND each other. </p>
<p>It is competitive to get into both these schools. For Pingry the student visits for a full day, and gets a fairly good view of the school. There are open houses and exploratory sessions prior to this, which I would recommend. IF you have specific questions, please feel free to PM me.</p>
<p>Thanks to all who responded. Both are excellent schools academically with great sports programs. We have been told that Pingry has a reputation of being a pressure cooker although we’re not sure if this is true. Delbarton appears to be more collegial.</p>
<p>Which school would be a better fit for a boy who likes to play sports but is more academically inclined? Thanks</p>
<p>Pingry is definitely better…delbarton is shady on the grades. Most kids go there for sports not academics.</p>
<p>Call for D’yer Maker, calling D’yer Maker…</p>
<p>I think erlanger says it best (and concisely).</p>
<p>I disagree with collegebound1414’s conclusion…not to say that the opposite is true, but that I know plenty of kids at Delbarton are there for the overall experience which includes a rigorous, challenging academic program. In fact, I’d say “most” kids do that…but – getting back to erlanger – see for yourself firsthand! They’re both great institutions and there are enough differences for some kids to feel right at home at one…and not so much at the other.</p>
<p>Without trying to be presumptuous and go so far as to suggest that Delbarton is the better choice for your son, consider the fact that it is single-sex in terms of your son being more gifted academically as opposed to athletically. There’s no stigma that comes from not being an athletic superstar. There are no girls to impress or posture for while you’re on campus during the academic day, so the academic whiz gets to shine without being overshadowed by the guy in the letter jacket. I chafe at the “jock school” image that Delbarton has developed (not without its own complicity) and advise you to not look at this important choice using such blunt and crass generalities (whether it’s labeling one school a “geek school” or another one an “artsy school” or whatever other misleading label you might stumble upon). Both Pingry and Delbarton are college prep schools, so instead of focusing on a limited range of specific gifts and shining a spotlight on a child’s most extraordinary talents, they are both geared towards developing well-rounded young people and challenging them on all fronts.</p>
<p>I’m 30 years out…but I know several current Delbarton students (many of our own kids are at that age…) and I couldn’t put them into a single basket. They’re very different, but – and this should be true of any fine school – they benefit from the differences in the strengths and abilities of their peers. 30 years out and there’s very little that I can say that I learned in the classroom that I remember today. What I do remember – and value – are the interactions that I had with my classmates and teachers. That’s the stuff that lasts…and if your son sits in on classes at these two schools or others, I’d encourage him to gauge where he is most inspired by the dialogue and camaraderie among students and faculty and zero in on those schools.</p>
<p>(I hope this was long enough not to disappoint.)</p>
<p>I think collegebound is way off base. I have a son who graduated from Delbarton a couple of years ago and a daughter currently at Pingry. My son, who is not an athlete, attends one of the top universities in America. I think that Delbarton prepared him extremely well academically for college. The school also did a great job on college placement for my son’s class. Although the school had some great sports teams, I think only a small percentage of the class were recruited athletes and attend schools where, let’s say, they might not be without their athletic skills.</p>
<p>Pingry does have less emphasis on sports and more on academics than Delbarton, but not to an extreme extent.</p>
<p>The main differences include the fact that one school has no girls, but does have Benedictine monks running the school and setting the spiritual tone.</p>
<p>hah delbarton is not known for academics around here. they are known for their LACROSSE(which is why they have such a high # of lacrosse schools…jhu and duke). Yes there are some people there for pure academics…but those type of people are everywhere(not an ethnic reference btw). i believe they are about the same size(correct me if im wrong), but pingry has a better across the board college matriculation. most students i know that went to delbarton…graduated for sports or went to sub-par schools that cost less than high school(not including state schools).</p>
<p>edit: delbarton was also caught in an SAT cheating scandal a few years back.</p>
<p>edit2: from reading other posts on similar topics it seems that pingry’s principal recently resigned…so it may have changed quite a bit. but, delbarton’s principal or dean/some important figure recently died so not sure how either has changed.</p>
<p>Delbarton was listed @ #9 in the WSJ’s Top 20 private high schools. This is not to say that kids aren’t recruited for lax, soccer and hockey. Amazing how the kids of retired NHL stars end up at this school. No secret among the boys that the jocks are filtered into ‘easier’ sections of classes - how fair is it for an extra credit question on a chemistry test to have NOTHING to do w/ chemistry and everything to do w/ lax?? Also no secret that the more you donate the better off your son will be, ie. ‘picked’ to attend choice 1-week summer study programs @ local colleges. College counselling is very good but don’t think for a minute that as a parent you can stand back and not question why they are ‘pushing’ your son towards choosing a certain college. Could be because a big donor’s child wants to go to the school your son really wants, not the one guidance thnks he should be at and your son stands to take ‘his’ spot. The kids in the arts get ZERO respect, the jocks threw pencils at the fall drama kids while they were giving a preview of their play last fall. The choral director doesn’t know what he’s doing, plays favorites and talented kids are steering clear of the Fine Arts Center in droves. There’s a reason why Gill got 4 nominations for their production of ‘Kiss Me, Kate’ and Delbarton didn’t even get an ‘Honorable Mention’…</p>
<p>If Delbarton is so poor academically vs. sports, explain how this school consistently sends 30% - 40% of its class to the Ivies? Any school that can get 6 into Princeton and 5 into Harvard and 2 into Columbia in one year (2007) out of maybe 100 graduating seniors, for example, is a school on par with anything Andover has. Amazing acceptance record. Pingry can’t even touch this.</p>
<p>Pingry posts placement numbers on its website. For the period from 2006 through 2009, they had the following numbers of students go to each of the Ivies: Brown 8; Columbia 9; Cornell 17; Dartmouth 8; Harvard 13; U of Penn 18; Princeton 15 and Yale 14. Not too shabby in my opinion. Both their girl’s and boy’s soccer teams are consistently outstanding as well.</p>
<p>I don’t think the choice – and it’s a nice one to have! – is settled by p!ssing contests over Ivy admission rates. Clearly, it’s now established on the record here on CC that neither school is “lite” when it comes down to whether they can deliver a top-notch education.</p>
<p>Frankly, at this stage of the game, I judge a school by the quality and character of its alumni. When I think of the people I know from Pingry, I generally regard them as top-flight people. They are people I am glad to know and appreciate being in their company. They’re bright and personable and high-achieving in the things they’ve embarked upon in life. As for my much larger base of Delbarton alums that I know, I have much the same perception except that, because I share that experience with them, I also feel a certain amount of humility in their company as well as pride to be associated with such a group of men, whether they’re old-timers (which now includes me) or more recent grads.</p>
<p>I think the big factor is co-ed v. single-sex. For some, the religious affiliation of Delbarton might be a factor, but I wouldn’t rush to judgment on that and approach that with an open-mind – even if, in the end, it is a deciding factor. Beyond that, it gets very subjective and I think a prospective student really needs to get a feel for himself as to which is the right choice for him. Parents, however, can relax knowing that there’s no bad choice to be made here if they think that their son has a good sense of the kind of environment that makes him feel excited to call his high school home.</p>
<p>DelbartonMom - too funny! I appreciate your honesty. I have two children at a private day school and I think these issues are present in most private school where you have children of alumni and faculty in attendance. My son is a 6th grader and I am contemplating moving him because I feel the school it beginning to lean too much toward the arts. He lives for sports, and yet even in middle school he HAS to join the choir or play a musical instrument. I feel this is fine for lower school for the purposes of exposing a child to the arts, but if they have no interest, they have no interest. I think at least 2 of his periods every day are a total waste of his time. He is frustrated and I have no good answer when he asks why he has to be in the choir when he cannot carry a tune.</p>