Can Lawrenceville student or parents give some clues how good the STEM in lawrenceville is? My son got into both Lawrenceville and Pingry, and we need to choose one better in STEM since he is strong in STEM but weak in LA. It seems to us Lawrenceville does not even offer AP courses. Only Honor calculus course prepares students for AP exam. Chemistry, physics and biology course do not prepare students for AP exams. Thanks in advance.
These are both excellent private prep schools. Either one is going to prepare your student well for college.
Both will require literature and writing…and writing across the curriculum. Neither is solely a STEM school.
ETA…we know grads of both schools.
Not uncommon for boarding schools. They feel they can design a perfectly challenging curriculum on their own.
Students who are striving for college credit can fill in the blanks on their own. For college admissions, no US college expects AP scores if the school does not offer the course.
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My son faced a similar situation and was accepted to both schools. He graduated from Lville in 2018 as a boarder.
The STEM program at Lville is not that strong TBH. The humanities education is much better. My son had more interest in humanities anyway, so it worked out fine in the end. Lville has some amazing facilities and lab space. But they make it difficult for the students to use. They have a program called Hutchins Scholars where students can complete a science project over the summer. Getting permission to use the lab space without being a Hutchins is difficult.
The lack of AP courses is not as big of a deal as it seems. There are several classes which are taught towards the AP curriculum (CS, Stats, Calculus) so many students take the AP exams and do fine. But there are many more that don’t follow the AP curriculum. So in these cases the students have to self-study the extra material. But colleges are familiar with the rigor of the Lville education so there is no need to take the actual AP exam unless your kid wants credit. Note that if your child is interested in any of the UK schools then having at least 5 AP exams is essential. But for US colleges they will understand.
Overall I would say that the STEM preparation at Pingry is better than Lville. There are some nearby magnet schools which have even better STEM programs: Bergen Academies, Middlesex, Biotechnology High, etc).
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I’ve been working in the STEM field for 30+ years. Over my time I’ve encountered many brilliant scientists and engineers. But what sets apart the best is the ability to communicate and clearly articulate their findings in a simple and easy to understand manner. Many scientists have difficulty with writing.
If your son is good in STEM but weak in LA, then a Harkness based education be worth considering. He can always learn the STEM in college. But setting the building blocks now (writing, reading, speaking) will benefit him in the longer-term.
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I’m a current junior (day student) at Lawrenceville.
Yeah, Lawrenceville dropped the AP curriculum in the mid-2000s, like many of its peers (look at Andover or Exeter’s course catalog, for instance). That being said, many of the classes prepare you pretty well for the AP exam anyways.
So I actually take Honors Chemistry right now, and while the class doesn’t explicitly prepare you for the AP exam, you cover almost everything—our teachers even gave us a guide as to what we need to self-study; it’s maybe 2 hours or so of content. We also frequently use an AP prep book for homework exercises.
More generally, Lawrenceville’s STEM teaching tends to be better at the high levels. I started out in low-level math (Math 3X) and had a pretty bad experience, but once I moved up to more advanced classes (Precalculus BC, Honors Calculus BC), I started getting far better teachers and enjoying my classes far more. My story is quite similar in science.
I’d actually say that even though I leaned towards humanities when I arrived at this school, my experiences here have allowed me to gain a far better appreciation of STEM subjects. However, I would like to emphasize once again that the good STEM teachers almost exclusively teach difficult, high-level courses—you might have problems freshman and sophomore year, when you can’t take such classes.
Extracurricular science isn’t all that strong, aside from the Hutchins Scholars program. Hutchins is very competitive; it has a <20% acceptance rate, and to even be considered for it, you must be nominated by a science teacher. We’ve been getting a bunch of math whizzes in the past few years, though, so the math team is improving.
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I heard L’ville is weak in STEM. My son’s college roommate is from L’ville. Pingry is not bad. Incidentally it is useful to go through the AP curriculum in part because you can place out of some first year courses. Much easier than testing out.
Thank you so much for the information. One more question.
My son takes honor Geometry at 8th grade. So the first course at 9th grade would be math 3x, followed by precalculus BC (assuming he continues to do good) ?
Yes. They changed up the Math 3X teachers between when I took it and now (and I’ve had both of them, one for PCBC and one for Calc BC), so it should be a lot better when your child enters.
I think you should also be considering lifestyle. Will he be a boarder at Lville? Even as a day student he will stay there until after dinner most nights. Is that something he wants?
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If one of the schools has something that is critical to you and the other doesn’t, its easy. High school STEM programs vary quite a bit YET for most students at most schools, there will be the options they need to establish a firm foundation for a STEM track in college. Far fewer will provide opportunities to differentiate these to the point that MIT will be wowed. So I would carefully evaluate the path of coursework at both by looking at the course catalog and asking the school directly if your plans are likely to unfold as you see them.
But @TonyGrace ’ point is right on. The experience of attending a BS – even as a day student-- will be very different than that of attending a day school. Personally, I think there are a ton of advantages to BS as they are set up to offer the student everything in that community and have schedules that facilitate that. But it also means that the student will be on campus for many more hours each day as clubs and study groups may meet after dinner. Classes on Saturday will get them back to school on weekends and with happenings there, they are likely to stay. This will be a different experience for the student and the parents. At the revisits, pay special attention to this as you are choosing a lifestyle as well as a school.
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Be warned: my parents regularly pick me up from school at 10:00 or even 11:00 PM 
It’s as much of a job for you as a parent as it is for the student.
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Or, @confusedaboutFA points out, a liberation for you! Many parent appreciate the flexibility that having a home away from home provides. If you aren’t free in the afternoon for pickup or to get your kid to a club sport, that’s fine. Your kid can stay for dinner if the train gets you home late, for example.
And as @confusedaboutFA pointed out, Lawrenceville tends to push that to the extreme. I remember our revisit being all about “boarders who sleep at home” or “boarding at a discount.” There are exemptions of course, but that is certainly the lifestyle of the day students I personally know.
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A lot of very high performing HS’s (both public and private) have been modifying their curriculum to not offer AP courses but instead offer courses of equivalent rigor, so I wouldn’t read anything into Lville doing that one way or the other. strong course in any of those STEM subjects an a nominal amount of AP-specific prep (from free online sources) close to the test can yield a great result on the STEM AP courses. In the meantime, all the better than the curriculum is not held hostage to the AP rubric and timing (many of our local HS’s AP courses cram before early May then have little to do from May through late June when school ends).
My son who went to Pingry went to back to the school and told them strongly not to drop the APs. The APs give automatic place out choice at several colleges. And your first year curriculum completely frees up. Other friends of his corroborated with their experiences at other colleges. Not sure how much of an impact this had on the school, but the school still has APs in place. They are a major convenience. Kids that do even the IBs don’t have the same convenience, let alone the kids that do the school’s own curriculum, even if that curriculum has more rigor. Indeed Pingry also has a whole bunch of post AP courses, and some of the AP courses such as AP E&M are not taught to the test, but taught at a higher level. Kids can easily manage to ace the test. For subjects like AP Lang and AP Lit, there are no courses, and kids just wing them. Instead there are a bunch of interesting semester long courses in English.
Hello, newbie question regarding the lack of AP courses: If your school does not offer college board AP courses but only similarly rigorous ones, will the graduates have to take placement tests in their freshman year to qualify for credit waivers? Thanks!
Not necessarily. Keep in mind that AP courses themselves don’t grant anything more than normal high school credit; students earn APcredits by sitting the exams in May and there’s zero requirement for taking any specific course first. Most schools that have dropped the official AP courses or are in the process of phasing them out still have plenty of students taking the AP exams in subjects where they’re most useful for college placement. Science, math and foreign language departments especially will usually offer guidance & resources for students taking the most relevant courses who decide to sit AP exams to prepare well. They’ll provide study guides, hold review sessions, and advise students appropriately. And of course these courses use the same college textbooks and problem sets they’d be using if the course had AP in front of its title.
The trend at the college level, especially top-tier ones, is towards allowing APs in language, math, and sciences to be used for course advancement but not necessarily credit. This can be incredibly helpful in specific areas but not all AP exams have the same utility and a lot of students are better served being more deliberate about which exams to take instead of AP just being the default for all honors/advanced coursework.
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If the HS does not offer AP courses, some students still take the corresponding AP exam. Which non-AP labeled course aligns with the exam will vary by school. For example, at my HS, Physics C aligned pretty closely; USH required a bit of supplemental self study; World history did not come close.
In terms of college placement, almost every college has a foreign language placement exam. Many have a math placement exam. Some have a science and / or writing placement exam. With relatively few exceptions, these exams are only for placement; they award no credit.
The rules for who takes the placement exam vary by college and run the gamut from mandatory for everyone to optional.
To be clear, AP exams are not expected for admissions when there is no AP course. Taking the exam, if the student desires, should be for reasons other than impressing admissions.
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And taking these exams, if desired by the student, should happen while they are in high school…not when they are college freshmen.
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