| The Lawrenceville School | |
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| Location | |
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2500 Main St, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648 ,, United States | |
| Coordinates | 40°17′39″N74°43′30″W / 40.29414°N 74.72494°W /40.29414; -74.72494 |
| Information | |
| Type | Private, independent,day andboarding,college-preparatory |
| Motto | Virtus Semper Viridis ("Virtue Always Green") |
| Established | 1810; 215 years ago (1810) |
| CEEB code | 310680 |
| NCES School ID | 00869171[2] |
| President | Michael S. Chae |
| Head of school | Stephen S. Murray[1] |
| Faculty | 117.1FTEs[2] |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Enrollment | 818 (as of 2021–22)[2] |
| Student to teacher ratio | 7:1[2] |
| Campus | 700 acres (2.8 km2) |
| Colors | Red and black |
| Athletics conference | Mid-Atlantic Prep League New Jersey Independent Schools Athletic Association |
| Sports | Yes |
| Mascot | Larrie the Bulldog |
| Nickname | Big Red |
| Rival | The Hill School |
| Accreditation | Middle States[3] |
| Endowment | $632.9 million (as of July 22, 2021) |
| Tuition | $79,500 Boarding $65,420 Day (2024-25) |
| Affiliations | NJAIS ESA TSAO |
| Website | www |
The Lawrenceville School is aprivate,coeducationalpreparatory school for boarding and day students located in theunincorporated community ofLawrenceville withinLawrence Township inMercer County, in theU.S. state ofNew Jersey. Lawrenceville is a member of theEight Schools Association and theTen Schools Admission Organization.
Lawrenceville School was founded in 1810 as theMaidenhead Academy byPresbyterian clergymanIsaac Van Arsdale Brown. One of the oldestpreparatory schools in the United States, it has had several names, includingLawrenceville Classical and Commercial High School[4] andLawrenceville Academy.[5]
In 1883, theJohn Cleve Green Foundation purchased the school from its aging headmasterSamuel Hamill and renamed itThe Lawrenceville School.[6] Green, who had died in 1875, was born in the village of Lawrenceville and was one of Maidenhead Academy's original students.[7] A successful merchant, he amassed a large fortune investing in railroads, importing tea and textiles, andexporting opium to China.[7] With no surviving children, much of his estate went to charitable causes.[8]
The trustees of the Green Foundation, including Green's widow Sarah, brother Caleb, nephew Charles, and friendJohn T. Nixon, aimed to turn Lawrenceville into a college-preparatory institution "with a more elite student body."[9] With $1.25 million to spend (approximately $40 million in 2024 dollars),[10] they hired Presbyterian ministerJames Cameron Mackenzie to study thepublic schools of the United Kingdom, and later appointed him Head of School.[8] Mackenzie's British-inspired innovations included Lawrenceville's house system, "the [first] small-unit housing plan ... in America."[8][11] He argued that a "home-like atmosphere was better for an adolescent boy and made him a better student."[8] Upon his return to the United States, the trustees commissioned a new campus fromFrederick Law Olmsted andPeabody and Stearns, which has since been designated a U.S.National Historic Landmark District.[8][12]
The 1883 reorganization of Lawrenceville successfully elevated the school's profile and turned it into nearbyPrinceton University's most reliable feeder school. Princeton presidentJames McCosh had been searching for a Mid-Atlantic alternative to New England boarding schools, which he thought funneled their best students to New England schools such as Harvard.[13] He used John Cleve Green's fortune to fill this gap. Green had been one of Princeton's most important donors;[7] his great-great-great-grandfatherJonathan Dickinson had founded Princeton in 1746.[14] Accordingly, the new Lawrenceville School was established "for the express purpose of preparing students for Princeton."[15]
Lawrenceville was a large success; the school sent 20 students to Princeton in 1886 alone, and enrollment leaped from 112 students in 1883 to 362 by 1898.[16] The school's successful relaunch marked the start of a large boom in the American boarding school industry, which also includedGroton (founded 1884),Taft (1890),Hotchkiss (1891),Choate (1896),St. George's (1896),Middlesex (1901),Kent (1906), andLoomis (1914).[17]
In 1932, Lawrenceville sent 62 students to Princeton, nearly ten percent of the freshman class and more than the next two schools (Phillips Exeter andMercersburg) put together.[18] In the 1950s, theCollege Entrance Examination Board tested an early version of today'sAdvanced Placement program at Lawrenceville, Exeter, andAndover, with input from Princeton as well asHarvard andYale.[19][20]
In 1936, Lawrenceville adopted theHarkness system of seminar-based classes.Time magazine reported thatEdward Harkness offered the school "a blank check" to adopt his preferred system, which Exeter had previously adopted in 1930.[21]
WhenIvy League schools refocused their admissions practices on academic excellence in the 1950s and 1960s, the admissions director atYale University wasR. Inslee Clark Jr., a former Lawrenceville faculty member.[22][23]
Lawrenceville admitted its first African-American students, Lyals Battle '67 and Darell A. Fitzgerald '68, in 1964, one year after the longtime president of the board of trustees, an opponent of integration, stepped down.[24][25] Upon their admission, the new board president remarked that Lawrenceville was the last major American boarding school to admit students of color. In 2024, the school renamed the atrium of the school gym (previously named for the earlier board president) to honor its first two black students. That year, 55% of the student body were classified as non-white.[26] In the 2021-22 school year, the school reported that of its 818 students, 371 (45.4%) were white, 159 (19.4%) were Asian, 79 (9.7%) were Black, 50 (6.1%) were Hispanic, and 159 (19.4%) were multiracial. The survey did not permit the school to classify its students in multiple categories.[2]
Lawrenceville began admitting girls in 1987.[27] In 1999, the student body elected its first female student body president, Alexandra Petrone; in 2003, Elizabeth Duffy was appointed the School's first female headmaster; and in 2005,Sasha-Mae Eccleston '02 became Lawrenceville's first alumna to win aRhodes Scholarship.[28][29]
In 2001,The New York Times wrote that Lawrenceville was "[o]nce - and perhaps still - as much a symbol of the establishment asFar Hills or theSocial Register," but was currently trying "to reinvent itself as an instrument of meritocracy rather than aristocracy."[30] The school's admissions rate was 20.5% in the 2017-18 school year.[31] Applications increased nearly 20% during the COVID-19 pandemic, "with part of the increase driven by Black applicants and families seeking financial aid."[32]
In 2010, Lawrenceville set the world record for the largest custard pie fight.[33]
Heads of school include:[6]
Tuition and fees for the 2024-25 school year are $79,500 for boarding students and $65,420 for day students.[35] From 2010 to 2014,Business Insider ranked Lawrenceville as America's most expensive private high school.[36] However, the school commits to provide need-basedfinancial aid covering 100% of an admitted student's demonstrated financial need.[35]
In the 2023-24 school year, 34% of the student body was on financial aid, with an average boarding aid grant over $60,000 and an average day grant over $44,000.[37] In the 2024-25 school year, Lawrenceville reported 189 families with boarding students on scholarship. 64 of these families had household incomes under $125,000/year; after financial aid, they paid an average contribution of $703. 36 families had household incomes over $350,000/year, with an average contribution around $36,000. The school did not provide corresponding statistics for day students.[38]
Lawrenceville does not publicly report the size of itsfinancial endowment. However, from 2016 to 2021, its endowment increased from $381.1 million to $632.9 million.[39][40] In itsIRS filings for the 2021-22 school year, Lawrenceville reported total assets of $1.06 billion, net assets of $937.7 million, investment holdings of $631.0 million, and cash holdings of $78.0 million. The school also reported $65.0 million in program service expenses and $15.5 million in grants (primarilystudent financial aid).[41]
Lawrenceville has attracted several major donors in the 21st century. In 2017,Alibaba founderJoseph C. Tsai '82 and his wifeClara Wu '82, contributed the largest gift in school history.[42] The exact size of the gift was undisclosed, but it was larger than the $60 million donation from Janie and Henry Woods in 2007.[43]
Lawrenceville School | |
.JPG) Woods Memorial Hall at the Lawrenceville School | |
  Location in Mercer County, New Jersey Show map of Mercer County, New Jersey Lawrenceville School (New Jersey) Show map of New Jersey Lawrenceville School (the United States) Show map of the United States | |
| Location | Main Street,Lawrenceville, New Jersey |
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| Coordinates | 40°17′42″N74°43′45″W / 40.29500°N 74.72917°W /40.29500; -74.72917 |
| Area | 17.74 acres (7.18 ha)[45] |
| Architect | Peabody & Stearns;Frederick Law Olmsted |
| Architectural style | Queen Anne,Romanesque |
| Part of | Lawrence Township Historic District (ID72000799) |
| NRHP reference No. | 86000158[44] |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | February 24, 1986 |
| Designated NHLD | February 24, 1986[46] |
| Designated CP | September 14, 1972 |
Lawrenceville has a self-contained campus, separated from centralLawrenceville byU.S. Route 206 (Main Street). The campus is a 15-minute drive fromPrinceton, New Jersey.
In 1986, the old campus core of Lawrenceville School (built in 1884–85) was declared aNational Historic Landmark.[47][46] The landscape designerFrederick Law Olmsted planned the campus and grounds, and thePeabody & Stearns architectural firm designed the buildings, including Memorial Hall (now Woods Memorial Hall), which theNational Park Service cited for the "richness of [its] materials" and "the high quality of the decorative details."[8][48] The campus core also includes a gymnasium, the headmaster's house, the Circle House dormitories, and a chapel. The landmark covers 17.74 acres (7.18 ha);[8] the present-day campus includes over 700 acres.[49]
In 1972, the village of Lawrenceville, including parts of the school campus, was placed on theNational Register of Historic Places, as part of theLawrence Township Historic District.[45]
Lawrenceville utilizes ahouse system, similar to many British schools.[50] Students reside in four distinct groups of Houses—the Lower Houses for II formers (freshmen), the Crescent (girls) and the Circle (boys) Houses for III and IV Formers (Sophomores and Juniors respectively), and the V Form (Senior) Houses.[51] Faculty members are also associated with each House, either as Heads of House or duty affiliates who support and monitor students of their assigned house.[52]
Currently, there are two Lower Houses, Raymond for II Form boys and Dawes for II Form girls, along with six Circle Houses, five Crescent Houses, and four Senior Houses. The Circle Houses are Cleve, Griswold, Woodhull, Hamill, Kennedy, and Dickinson, while the Crescent Houses are Carter, McClellan, Stephans, Stanley and Kirby. There are two houses for Senior girls, Reynolds, and McPherson; V Form boys are housed mainly in the Upper House, with a few students in the much smaller Haskell House.[53]
The Circle Houses were designed byPeabody and Stearns, as part of the original campus plan, and are part of Lawrenceville's National Historic Landmark.[54][55] Four Crescent House dorms designed by Short and Ford Architects of Princeton, New Jersey, were opened in 1986.[56] A fifth, designed byRMJM Hillier opened in 2010.[57]
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There are 38 major buildings on Lawrenceville's campus, including the Bunn Library, which has space for 100,000 volumes.
Lawrenceville has 18 athletics fields, a nine-hole golf course, 12 outdoor tennis courts, 21⁄4-mile (400 m) all-weather and indoor tracks, a hockey arena,[58] a ropes course, and access to an off-campus boathouse. During the summer, Lawrenceville is a popular site for youth sports camps and several academic programs for students and teachers, including theNew Jersey Scholars Program. The school recently finished building the Tsai Commons and Field House, which comprises a new dining hall, new community space, and additions to existing athletic facilities; this project was completed and opened for the first time in the 2024-25 school year.[59][60]
In the spring of 2012, the school began to draw its energy needs from asolar farm, which consists of a nearly 30-acre, net-metered, 6.1-megawatt solar facility.[61]
The school operates the Big Red Farm, a working agricultural facility with three greenhouses, 4 acres (1.6 ha) of farmland, 20 acres (8.1 ha) of pastureland for the school's sheep, chickens and pigs, and several honey-producing beehives.[62]
Lawrenceville is a member of theEight Schools Association, a group of leading American secondary schools informally founded during the 1973–74 school year and formally established in 2006.[63][64] Lawrenceville is also a member of theTen Schools Admissions Organization.[65] The school was formerly part ofG20 Schools, an international group of secondary schools.
Lawrenceville is affiliated withThe Island School inCape Eleuthera,The Bahamas, to which it sends students for semesters abroad.[66] Island School was founded by a former Lawrenceville teacher.[67]
The school is accredited by theMiddle States Association of Colleges and Schools.[3]
In the fall of 2014, L10 News, the school's weekly ten-minute newscast, was founded on Lawrenceville's YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Other student-run publications includeThe First Amendment, a monthly political magazine founded in 2010,The Ledger, a semesterly business magazine,LMAG, a semesterly fashion magazine,In the Margins, a Diversity magazine,The Contour, a newspaper on global issues,El Artículo, a Spanish publication,The Calliopean, a journal of literary criticism, andThe Lit, a literary magazine published once a term, three times a year.The Lit was founded in 1895 by authorOwen Johnson, who went on to write theLawrenceville Stories.[68] Annual student publications includeThe Lawrenceville Historical Review, the school's history periodical,Olla Podrida, the school yearbook;Lawrencium, the science research journal; andPrize Papers, a compilation of the best academic work in the English Department by that year's IV Form (junior) class. There is also a WLSR radio club.[69]
The school's weekly newspaper,The Lawrence, is the third oldest secondary school newspaper in the United States, afterThe Phillipian andThe Exonian.The Lawrence has been published regularly since 1881. Students make up the editorial board and all decisions for the paper, consulting with two faculty advisors at their discretion.[70]
The Lawrence has won numerous awards, including the Columbia Journalism Award in consecutive years.[69] In 2019,The Lawrence also won an editorial award from Youth Journalism International.[71] Notable contributors include sportswriterBob Ryan in 1964[72] and businessmanJoseph Tsai.
Lawrenceville athletics compete in theMid-Atlantic Prep League.[73] In addition, through the Eight Schools Athletic Council, the members of theEight Schools Association organize sports events and tournaments among ESA schools.[74][75][76]
Lawrenceville competes with other schools in baseball, basketball, crew, cross-country, fencing, field hockey, football, golf, ice hockey, indoor and outdoor track, lacrosse, soccer, softball, squash, swimming, tennis, volleyball, water polo and wrestling.[77] In addition, the School offers a variety of intramural sports, includingUltimate Disc for the girls' Crescent Houses and 8-man flag football for the boys' Circle Houses.[citation needed]
Lawrenceville's rival isThe Hill School ofPottstown, Pennsylvania, another member of the Mid-Atlantic Prep League.[73] On the first or second weekend of November during "Hill Weekend," the two schools celebrate the nation's eighth-oldesthigh school football rivalry and fifth-oldest private school rivalry, dating back to 1887.[78]
In the spring of 2015, the Lawrenceville Boys' varsity crew team won the MAPL League Championship, beating out Peddie, Hun, and Blair;[79] placed first at the US Rowing Mid-Atlantic Youth Championship;[80] and then went on to place 4th at the US Rowing Youth Nationals held in Camden, NJ. The crew was selected for the Henley Royal Regatta and is widely regarded as the greatest crew in the school's history.[81] Multiple members of this crew either went on to race for the United States Jr. National Team or row at D1 universities such as Cal, Wisconsin, Yale, Georgetown, and Northeastern,[82] or the United States Jr. National Development Team. In the fall of 2010, the Lawrenceville boys' varsity crew team won the Head of the Christina Regatta in Delaware,[83] then placed 14th in a field of 75 at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston, Massachusetts, later in the season.[84]
In the spring of 2008, the Lawrenceville boys' and girls' varsity track and field team completed its season undefeated, placing first in the NJISSAA and MAPL.[citation needed] In the winter of 2011, the 4x200 team was the fastest in the nation, earning each one of them the status of All-American.[85] By January 2014, the Lawrenceville boys' varsity track team had won 103 dual meets in a row; the boys' team has not lost a dual meet, a Prep State A championship, or the MAPL championship since 2006.[86] In winter 2014, the 4x55 Shuttle Hurdle Relay team was ranked number 2 in New Jersey and number 3 in the nation.[85]
On November 6, 2005, the Lawrenceville girls' varsityfield hockey team defeatedStuart Country Day School 2–1 to capture their third straight Prep A state championship. On November 5, 2006, the varsity field hockey team defeatedStuart Country Day School 1–0 to capture their fourth straight Prep A state championship. In 2007 they tied rival Stuart Country Day School for a shared victory in their fifth straight Prep A state championship with a 2–2 tie on a late Lawrenceville goal.[87]
On February 12, 2006, the Lawrenceville varsity boys'squash team won the National Championship for the third year in a row.[88]
In May, 2006, the boys' varsity baseball team won the New Jersey Prep A championship overPeddie School in a doubleheader (14-0 and 6–1), earning their second state championship in three years.[citation needed] Lawrenceville defeated Peddie again in the 2010 finals to win its second consecutive Prep A title.[89]
In May, 2023, the boys' varsity lacrosse team won the Prep Nationals championship game overBrunswick School by a score of 14-13 in double overtime. They finished the season on an 18-game winning streak, to end with a record of 19-1.[90] The team went on to win the Prep National Championship the following year too, defeating Brunswick 14-5.[91] In the 2025 tournament, the Big Red won the championship again, overcomingSalisbury 12-4 for secure three championships in a row.
Lawrentians in the arts include writersOwen Johnson,James Merrill,Frederick Buechner, andBill Berkson; musiciansHuey Lewis andDierks Bentley;[92] and screenwriterMerian C. Cooper. Those active in media and entertainment include author and ecologistAldo Leopold (1904–1905),[93] socialite andReal Housewife of New YorkTinsley Mortimer, and athletesJoakim Noah andBobby Sanguinetti, and financial analystCeleste Mellet.[94]
Lawrenceville was featured in several novels byOwen Johnson, who graduated from Lawrenceville in 1895:
From 1987 to 1989,PBS ran the miniseriesThe Lawrenceville Stories, also based on Johnson's Lawrenceville tales.[101]
{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help) andAccompanying 20 photos, exteriors and interiors, from 1980 and undated (32 KB)
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