Online Information Session: Why Big Red?

We got 3 seconds so.

Hello everyone and welcome.

We are super excited to have you joining us tonight. So what?

We're going to do here is we're going to have a little wait for everyone to roll in here. My name is Christine Ding and I'm the director of admissions communications and associate director of admissions here at Lawrenceville. I'm Andrew. Why don't you introduce yourself? Just the brief intro.

Alright, hello, my name is Andrew Buono. I am a fifth former at Lawrenceville and I am the school president as well.

So what we're going to do is, um, tonight we are going to gather and talk about why big Red. And so it's going to run the gamut of talking with four other Laurentians in addition to Andrew here. And we are going to talk about all the things that make Lawrenceville unique and we're going to get right down to the bottom of why these individuals chose Lawrenceville for their high school experience. And so hopefully.

At this point, everyone that's joined can hear me. So to confirm that I'm not just talking back and forth with Andrew, can you throw it in the chat or the questions section that you can actually hear me? Oh, perfect. I got one. I got 20. I got a lot. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling confident. Wonderful. OK to make it a little more interesting, let's see who is from the furthest. So if you could please throw out on where you are joining us from so I can hopefully.

Hopefully announce the winner of our furthest location or we got to Scroll down. Oh, I got some Texas. I got soul, North Carolina, Virginia, Atlanta, Chicago, California. Lot. A couple new jerseys. I love it.

Wonderful. New York. Columbus. OH, old British Columbia. Oh, this is good. OK, we, we're, we're covering the globe. Ohh, Spain. Oh my gosh, it's super late for you. I appreciate your attendance. Wonderful. OK, wonderful. Everyone can hear me and you're all from wonderfully different places. This is great. This is great. So I think we are at a number where I feel pretty confident that we should get started and anyone that joins us will likely.

Hop right in and be able to catch on to what we are talking about. So a couple housekeeping items before we get started. So again, this is the why big red information session for The Lawrenceville School hosted by Christine, Ding and Andrew. And so I just want to let everyone know that this presentation is being recorded. So if only a student here and mom and dad or a guardian wants to watch it later or vice versa, it will eventually be made available on our travel.

And events website in the coming days. If needed, close captioning can be made available by clicking the CC button on the top right corner corner of the window.

Full screen if you want to see this and Andrew, really full screen can be enabled by clicking the expand button on the top right corner.

Should the audio cut out? Our suggestion is just reshare, refreshing your share window. And my biggest thing that I want to put out there is that put any questions into the question section. One thing I'm going to say is this session why? Big Red will cover a lot of specific details about Lawrenceville, but we will really try to refrain from answering any individual applicant.

Questions, just because we're going to spend the time talking about things that will be important for all potential future Laurentians to know, OK, so we are super excited and we're actually going to get started. So the agenda will be, I'm going to do a little larger introduction of myself just so you can get to know me a little bit better and then hopefully I will stop talking besides asking questions.

Of Andrew and then after Andrew, we will then have four other Lawrenceville students joining us individually so that they can provide some insight to their Lawrenceville experience as well. So we're going to get into it. So as I mentioned earlier, I'm missus Ding.

I'm the director of Admissions communications and associate director of admissions. So that means I kind of have two jobs in the admissions office. I interview students and I might have interviewed some of you here tonight. So if so, I'm sorry because you're going to get a repeat of the intro I said during your interview. And then so I do that, I interview read applications. I get to be part of the committee that makes those decisions about our future Laurentians. And then my favorite part about my job.

Is I get to tell and figure out ways to tell the Lawrenceville story. So my favorite part about that is training the tour guides and getting them pumped and ready to tell their story so that when you come to the campus you get to hear what they love about our school so much. I also get to plan fun things like this. Why Big Red info session. I also plan our day student open house and then in the spring we host.

Are admitted student revisit days called Discovery Days, and I get to plan those as well. So I basically just get to spend my time inviting you into our community in a couple different ways. I also coach Big Red field hockey and big red lacrosse lacrosse, which is another favorite part of my job here at the school. And then in addition to that, I'm the assistant head of house in Kirby House, which is.

Obviously the best house on campus. I'm positive that that will be a topic of conversation with all of our panelists today because I did not realize this when I was planning it. But I have a lineup of five students that have all either served or are presently serving as their House president. So there is going to be a little bit of house competition going on tonight in the sense of trying to prove that their house is the best. So I live here in the house.

Uh, with my husband, who's a faculty member at Lawrenceville, and we live here with our two children, our four and our two year old and our dog. So, Umm very much in part of this community, and I truly love it. And so, a short answer to why Lawrenceville?

For me, it had a lot to do with our fabulous location and our surroundings in the sense of it was just a close to family for me, but it was also just such a rich and wonderful area in New Jersey that has provided a lot of opportunities for my family to really just flourish. And so we've loved being here, my kids love that there is.

An ice cream shop across the road that you really just can never say no to. And the second part of it is just the people we came to visit and knew right away, once we've started meeting with some students and some other faculty members, that this was a place that we wanted to live and work. And so for me that answers why big red? And I mean for a profession, I go on all day long talking about why big red? So I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to hand it over to Andrew.

He's going to give you his whole rundown of who he is, what he does. And just a tiny disclaimer as we head into this, all of the participants that are here tonight are either an 11th or 12th grader, and they are busy. They are students that are fully ingrained in the Lawrenceville community. They have pursued and found passions, and they've kind of hit the ground running and they've gone with it. And so you're going to hear.

All the things they do, some of them, the list is long and we will talk about time management, organization, how you handle all of that. But one of the things that I think they will all agree with is just that Lawrenceville is a place with tons of opportunities and our students really just take advantage of that. So I think I'm officially done talking 8 minutes in and 1st up of the night we've got Mr. President. So go ahead, Andrew.

Thank you, miss Ding. Like I said before, my name is Andrew Bueno. I was House President of the Griswold House Best House on campus. But right now I'm currently living in the upper house for 1/5 foreign boys. In terms of what I do on campus, like I said, I am school president. I'm also a head ropes course instructor, and I'll talk a little bit more about that later.

But I'm also the vice president of the African Students Union, and I'm on the Council of the Alliance of Black Cultures, and those are two of our black affinity groups on campus.

And a member of the varsity track and field team. I'm also sports editor for the Lawrence, which is our school newspaper. Some other things. I'm part of the school's select choir, the Laurentians, and I was a member of the school's all male acapella group voicemail. I'm sure Kyle will talk about that in a bit as well.

Also President of the Classics club. I peer tutor a library Proctor, a Merrill scholar, which is something specific that I also talk about later. I'm also on the board of the Lawrenceville Historical Review. I think that's everything.

Awesome. So Andrew, first question off the bat now that you gave your wonderful laundry list of activities and involvement is.

How did you end up here? Why did why did you choose Lawrenceville?

I'd say, you know, I'm, I'm a small town kid. I grew up in a pretty small town. And, you know, when I was thinking about applying to to private schools, I I toured a bunch. But when I came to Lawrenceville, it felt like a like a carnival to me, right? Because there's so many different things that people do here that people are interested in that. I just felt like I had to get immersed in this kind of community, right, a community where, you know, everyone's doing their thing, but we're all united in that. We all have that one thing that we're passionate about.

And that's something that really spoke to me when I tore here my first time.

Awesome. I love that imagery. So one thing that we're going to tap into first is simply because.

Right.

It is what you are doing. Let's talk about leadership at Lawrenceville. And so specifically, can you kind of tell me what does student council do? How does it start? What's the process of getting on it? What are the roles? What are the initiatives? What have you guys done this year?

So student council is made-up of nine fifth formers or seniors and they are elected at the end of their junior year through a whole election process. And it's it's members including the school president, vice Presidents of honor, academics and social life, and then five representative positions which include athletics, community service, diversity, arts and sustainability. And so we're A9 Member Group who essentially.

Act most most frequently as a conduit between the students and administration and faculty, just making sure that students have their voice heard at any given point in time. But we all have our little passion projects, kind of, that we work on in our spheres of influence.

Our academic Rep Iris this, I mean this school year has been working on making sure that students, even though we are an academically rigorous school, have a space where they can kind of pull back on their work and make sure that they're not getting burnt out with you know, different activities that they can do on campus. Lucas, our VP of Honor and Discipline is working in this sphere of reformer discipline process so that make sure that students are completely represented whenever they are in disciplinary.

Situations, but really the core of stucco, which is giving students a voice and a conduit, like I said, through which they can talk to the administration to have their voices heard.

Yeah. So each house on campus, there are eleven, I believe, right? Six for software and junior boys and five for software and junior girls.

Awesome. Thank you, Andrew. And so we'll get to it a little bit, but you mentioned that you were House President. And so tell me what, how House council, how each house has their own House counsel. Tell me how House council members work a little bit with the Student Council.

The House has their own house counsel that kind of mirrors the student council. So each house will have a House President, they'll have VP's of social life, things like that. And they work very closely with student council, right? I mean, I'd have to say for most positions, it's about a biweekly thing where they're meeting with student council to make sure that, you know, just because house counsels have that first hand look at what's going on in houses, they can talk to student council, and student council can, you know, get their voices out as well.

So the House system in that we have house counsels is very central to the Lawrenceville experience, right? When you, when you enter your house, you really bond with the people in that community. I mean, I, I mentioned before that I was in the Griswold House. I firmly believe it's the best house on campus and I wouldn't trade the experience that I had in there for anything, right. And I'm glad that I was able to serve as House president there as well.

Go, grace. I'll keep saying that.

Yes.

Awesome. And so a question that we got into the chat, which I think this is a great opportunity to bring this up, is asking about our second formers and how they are incorporated into the House system and asking if Daws and Raymond, which are the houses for the 9th grade girls and the 9th grade boys, how do they get to partake in house activities or competition?

Yeah, so DOS and Raymond. Those are our freshmen houses, our second form houses.

I just knew this year actually they were allowed to have their own kind of little House Olympics. I don't think we mentioned this yet, but all of the sophomore junior houses on campus participate in the House Olympics in the first week back on campus. It's this massive event, one of the biggest events of the year, where everyone in the house gets together and they compete in these different Olympic style events to try and win the House Cup. And this year the freshman houses were allowed to have their own little competition.

Uh, kind of like a House Olympics, so that they have that kind of experience. But once freshmen are in their freshman spring, they'll be sorted into houses kind of like Harry Potter.

Somewhat randomly, and for the next two years of their Lawrence will experience, they're in their new house.

Awesome. And so one thing that is really unique to Lawrenceville and hopefully for those of you that have already visited or interviewed, you've heard a little bit more about this, is that we are really, really.

Really lucky and that our 9th grade really get their own intimate experience and that's also why our 9th grade is kept really small. We are a school about of 815, but the 9th grade is only about 130 and so that 9th grade experience is really.

Really wholesome in that. It's, it's you the there's one house here, there's another house here and there's an area in the middle called the bowl. And so Andrew, can you explain a little bit of what happens in the bowl?

Yeah, the bowl is this big open green space between the freshman girls and freshman boys houses. And honestly, I think I spent 60, if I had to guess, 6070% of my freshman year in the bowl. Whether that was playing football, playing soccer, I think we've made-up a couple of new games as well. But it's just this area where freshmen get to know each other for the first time and it's not intimidating at all because it's it's only freshman there.

Right. So you don't feel the pressure of under of upper classmen seeing you or whatever, but it's just really centralized space where you get to know your class and you get closer than you'll ever think very quickly.

Awesome. And so we will get more about the House system. A couple of you have thrown out some more questions, which is fabulous. We will get to these questions hopefully if we don't they'll be a space where you can follow up with these questions. One quick thing, just to state it now, day students are a part of the house just as much as our borders are. And so each house has a day student room. So as a day student every morning you'd get dropped off at the house and at night you get picked up at the house. But we are going to move along and answer some questions.

That are specific to Andrew and and so the first, the next question I want to ask Andrew is what does Lawrenceville do to foster an inclusive community and what have you been what groups have you been a part of that have done that?

I'd say, I mean, I talked a lot about the House already, but outside of the House, I'd say our affinity groups do a really good job of that. Like I mentioned before, I'm a part of the African Students Union and the Alliance of Black Cultures, which are two of our black affinity groups on campus. And I think that they really operate in a space where they give students an area to come together when people who they identify with.

And it's a really good first touch point if you feel insecure about your place in the community to be able to come together in a smaller setting with people who might look like you, who might have your same interests and really foster a sense of community in these smaller, you know, kind of units before you branch out into the into the full school community if that's something that you're looking for. So I'd say affinity groups do a really good job of, you know, fostering that sort of community.

Awesome. It's going to seem as though we're, we're leapfrogging around, but I did take the questions that were submitted prior to to the start of this. So we're going to pivot right now. And one of the questions that I think is really a big thing about why Lawrenceville had to do with research programs and labs and outside of the classroom learning opportunities that student students have. So Andrew, can you tell us a little bit of your involvement with the mayoral?

Scholar program and tell us a little bit about what our scholar programs are about.

Um, so Lawrenceville offers. I believe it's five different scholar programs and different areas of study. There are the Hutchins scholars in science, the Hutchins scholars and social justice, the Merrill Scholars in English, the Healy scholars in history and the Leopold Scholars and sustainability. I was a Merrill scholar this past year and what that looked like for me was a two week summer program where I spent a lot of time researching literature in preparation of.

Writing a paper during this fall, and I I loved Meryl just because being a being an English guy, right? You know you have your English classes, you have you know your time to read. But Merrill was this really intensive program where I really got to dive into what I wanted to write about and think about. So I spent the last three months.

Writing and reading about this ancient Greek literary genre called Katabasis and, you know, its implications and modern literature and all this stuff that I really, you know, fell into and really was, was passionate about. And that's what I got from the mayoral experience. And I'm sure that every every other scholar in the other four programs had, you know, somewhat similar stories where they were able to exercise their passions outside of their classroom.

Yeah.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Um, next we're going to pivot to another another sector in in your life, Andrew. And can you tell us a little bit about experiential learning at Lawrenceville? Obviously you can speak to the Rose Ropes course instructor side of it, but maybe tell us a little bit about Harkness travel, maybe a little bit about the farm and I can hop in if if needed, but I know you're a pro, so probably not.

Yeah, so I mentioned that I'm a head ropes course instructor, and when I mentioned that outside of the Lawrence community, I get kind of weird looks like, what does that mean? But the ropes course is this course off kind of in the woods on campus where students come up, especially at the beginning of their freshman year for orientation and the ropes course instructors. All we really do is lead the freshman class in different orientation activities, usually games that help them build bonds and start breaking down those barriers.

When you enter a new space and we also give them some time to climb up on our ropes course, we have a climbing wall and Alpine tower, a zip line, and it's a really cool experience for the students, but also for the instructors. I am really afraid of heights and so to kind of hop into that space and become a ropes course instructor and kind of dial back on that fear was was really fun for me. And in terms of parking travel trips, I have not had the pleasure of going on one yet.

But I saw into people who have gone on one, specifically the Austria trip this past year, which was awesome reading the blurb about it, but they essentially went on a two week trip up in Austria. I think they hit Germany as well, you know, climbing in the Alps, learning about the local history, speaking with with people who live there and getting essentially a history course while living the history themselves. And that was something great to hear about.

Hopefully when you're here at Lawrence, will you get to go on one of these trips as well.

The last thing you asked, Miss thing. I can't remember.

Yeah.

I just entered experiential learning at oftentimes our big red farm gets looped into that. And so I know my house has gone two or three Times Now to tour the farm. And so we are really lucky that right on our campus we have a, you know, a farm that has sheeps and pigs as well as a ton of produce, wildflowers and then all of that produce that is created or grown is then harvested by our students.

Farming is actually an option in the fall and the spring is an afternoon option. Teams will go, houses will go as a bonding opportunity to go. The produce goes directly right into our dining hall. We also offer it to local food pantries. And then we also have a farmers market Friday afternoons. So you're able to work on the farm. There is. We do have a full-fledged staff member that is the farmer and so it is his farm and.

He's running it. And so it's really awesome to see literal farm to table on the salad bar. And in the hot bar line, you'll often see the Big Red Farm logo under or above the offerings because then you'll know it came right from the farm. So kind of sounds like Andrew should have a job in admissions because he crushed all four of his questions. But what we're going to do is we are going to invite in another one of our Laurentians.

And so, um, avianna, if you could pop your camera on um, you're going to be the first one that joins us. And so why don't you go ahead and do the good old intro? So give us your name, your house, what you do here on campus, and then if you want, you can go right into explaining why you chose Lawrenceville.

Of course. So hi everyone. I'm Avianna Asian party and I'm a current junior or a fourth warmer and a border. And I am the President of my residential house, McClellan, which is the best house on campus. I am a member of the varsity crew team, a tour guide.

I'm also an editor of Lawrenceville literary publication the Limit Co, leader of a student LED club discussing different current event topics called let's talk about it or LTA. And I am the Co leader of the Catholic student organization. And I chose Lawrenceville because I was amazed by the large and inviting campus, as well as my interactions with the current students, faculty, and alumni I met during the application process and coming from an urban all girls.

Private school I wanted to change, and Lawrenceville felt incredibly inviting, especially for a student applying as a new 10th grader.

Awesome and great segue because you are going to answer the question that someone submitted saying how do new 10th graders integrate themselves into the community and how could new students get into leadership roles? And so I have a feeling you have a great response for that.

Yes. So entering as a new 10th grader, I was supported by several of Lawrenceville programs like the Rising Scholars Program, which Andrew Bono actually also attended, and it's a three-week program during the summer that modeled the.

Day-to-day life of Lawrenceville with a group of 30 newly accepted students. And from the moment I arrived in the fall of my sophomore year, I was I lived by the advice that I received in that program, which was to seek the extensive range of offerings at Lawrenceville. And so during our weekly school meeting that Andrew helps to run, there's announcements of clubs and upcoming applications and that really demonstrates, I think, the outreach of availability of clubs to the Community. And so my advice is to mark your calendars and say.

To date with emails announcing those meetings and to attend anything that sparks your interests, or even just to tag along with housemates or support a friend that may be leading the club.

And as I continue to follow this process and demonstrate interest, I was seen as a committed attendee and was offered leadership opportunities in the Catholic Student organization because I attended mass every Sunday and I also was chosen to continue the legacy of LTA as a result of my attendance of their meetings. So it may seem daunting at first, but there's always something for everyone out there.

Awesome, awesome. And so this kind of leads into it. So obviously a couple of the things that you were doing that you were joining were things that you already had probably previously been involved in or had, you know, familiarity with. So what, how, how is 1 supported?

When they try new things and a little bit of let's speak to how does one manage coming in as a new student, whether 9th grade or 10th grade or 11th grade or PG. How do you manage trying new things, getting adjusted and figuring it all out?

So for me, I think that Lawrence will support their students to try new things in all aspects and academics, Co curriculars and clubs. And so as a Lawrenceville student, you're admits this incredibly diverse student body with students from around the country and around the world and they have an equally expansive range of interests. And so meeting people in your classes, through your sports, in your house become very close to people who are very passionate in their specific interests. And the inviting nature of Lawrenceville organizations really helps to welcome.

All students and you don't even need prior experience. So, for example, in my case, I heard from members of my house about the crew team when we were discussing our Spring Co curriculars. And I had never rode before. And I heard about the impact of the sport on so many of my fellow classmates. And so I decided to give it a try. And so I tried out and made the team and I fell in love with the sport. And I'm so grateful to Lawrenceville because I would have never been exposed to rowing back at home. But then to sort of tie into your question about like trying new things, I think.

You definitely need to like you hear about like from Andrew and I like you have a lot of different interests and a lot of things you have and you kind of need to learn to manage your schedule. But I think especially through the program that I attended with and over the summer learning to help block out your schedule and you have the times for your Co CURRICULARS but then also times for your clubs and so managing all of that and I think tending to your interests is really important and so and not overloading yourself obviously.

Awesome. And So what advice would you leave to anyone that is currently in the application process as they are trying to?

Do two things. One, get their application ready, get it together, and then potentially at the end. What would you say to someone choosing between Lawrenceville and potentially somewhere, somewhere else?

It's a great question. So I think at least for me when I was making my application I really showcased a lot of the different interests that I had. So one of them being was this little school project I did at my old school was like a little graphing project and it like was pretty extensive actually for like a ninth grade project. And I like made this whole huge graph and I remember like I showed it to my interviewer and they were like very interested in it. So some things that you may not think are like that vital or things that like seem kind of elementary like you can.

And they actually might be very interesting. Sorry, that's my duty team member. They may seem very interesting too. Your your interviewer. So that's something that's great. And then I think my advice was the 2nd part. How did choose Lawrenceville?

Yeah.

Wait. Hold on one second.

Yeah.

Andrew, we actually got a quick question in here. How hard or how easy was it for you to pick Lawrenceville?

Easy. Really easy. And I'm and I'm really, I'm honestly not just saying that I I think that the the the image that I remember from my 8th grade year was driving him through Baker's Gate and seeing Pop Hall and seeing the bowl and I was like Oh my gosh, like this is insane. So that as well as you know all the different things that we talked about earlier, I it clicked immediately that Lawrence was going to be the place honestly.

Same for you a little bit there. So for you that you know once you were down to making the decision between here and other places, what was that deciding factor for you?

I think for me, I remember I was actually, I applied and I was coming in the 2020 to 2020, sorry, 2021 to 2022 school year. So a lot of it was online, but I remember I attended one of the online sessions and it was about bioethics. So it was like an interdisciplinary course we have here, which I haven't gotten the chance to take yet. But everyone has two interdisciplinary courses they're required to take before they graduate. And so those courses span between two different subjects and it was about, it was like an ethics course.

And also a science course. And I'm personally someone that's not that interested in science, but I definitely ask a lot of moral questions and like ethical questions. So I just thought it was an interesting way to tie in something that I wasn't as interested in. And I was like, wow, I'd be really interested in having an experience like that.

OK.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much avianna for joining us and so wonderful. So Next up we have Kyle. So thank you and hopefully Kyle will pop on here in a second and we'll get right into his there he is. So Kyle, Pop into name house.

Involvement and then throw a little bit of why Lawrenceville in there at the end.

Yeah.

Alright, you guys can hear me, just double check, OK? Yeah. Hey everyone, my name is Kyle. I'm a fifth former in the Kennedy House, so I'm a prefect this year in the Kennedy House. Objectively speaking, the best house out there, just to let you know.

But yeah, just to give you a few things that I do on campus. So I'm going to talk a little bit more about democracy and what that is. But this year I was in charge of sort of organizing that and leading that this academic year. And also, like I said before, a prefect in the Kennedy House. I'm part of the Tour guide Council. And in terms of sports, I was the captain of the varsity soccer team in the fall and I run track in the winter and spring. And I also love doing a lot of work with publication. So with Andrew, I'm part of the Lawrence and the managing editor this year.

I also run the religion and Philosophy magazine, which is called the insight, as well as the International News magazine called the Contour. So a lot of publication opportunities like you can tell they can get involved with here at Lawrenceville. And also last year I was involved with voicemail with Andrew as well. And this year I'm leading voicemail, which is the all male acapella group on campus. So we have a all girls acapella group and a co-ed group as well. So you can pretty much choose what you want to do there. And then I'm the President of the 2020 design club.

This year as well, so yeah.

Awesome. So, Kyle, when you were going through the process, what came down to it? Why did you choose Lawrenceville?

Yeah, so I think there was two main reasons. I think one reason was the hardness method that they use here at Lawrence Hill. So for those who are not familiar with hardness, hardness is pretty much prioritizing discussion based classes. So you're not sitting in lectures or you're not sitting in a structure where it's rows of desks, but you're actually in a circle where there is no head to the table. Everyone sort of leading the discussion, everyone's asking questions. So for me that was a huge part of an education for me that I wanted to sort of explore because in my previous school.

It was one of those electric style classrooms where we were sat in rows of desks. If you were sitting in the back of the classroom, like, you couldn't really ask a question if you wanted to just because you were so far away from the teacher. And I think those elements of hardness really persuaded me and convinced me to come here to Lawrenceville. And another interesting element of Lawrenceville is that it provides you with resources for you to continue your passions but also explore new ones. So I know I talked briefly about voicemail, but I've never done singing professionally. I've never done anything related to acapella or.

Wired but um at Lawrenceville, I was able to find these opportunities and get involved. So I think there's a very good balance between for you to continue developing these interests but also find new ones.

Love it. OK, so you mentioned it a little bit in your intro, but one of the questions we got from the attendees prior to the start here is what is the best or most rewarding thing about attending Lawrence Bell? So tell us a little bit about what that is for you.

Yeah. So for me, I think the opportunity for you to lead a new initiative is something that's very, very accessible here at Lawrenceville. So I briefly mentioned Democracy Day, but Democracy Day is for the first time at Lawrenceville, we instead of following in normal dev classes on Election Day, we essentially filled the day with civic engagement programming. So we brought in a guest speakers, we brought in Congressman Andy Kim to come and talk to us as well. And we had a lot of different workshop sessions. So Democracy Day was to give students the time.

Motivation and sort of the opportunity for them to talk about these important topics that they might, they might not necessarily have time to in a normal schedule. So the process for that was obviously sort of complicated but very, very possible just because the students as well as the faculty were very supportive of that. So it all started with a independent study and an independent study is pretty much a part of the academic curriculum here at Lawrenceville where if you want to pursue something that you don't see on the curriculum offerings, then you can pretty much go up to a teacher.

Or find someone that's going to help you out with this project and you can start doing this independent project. So for me, this independent project was about election ethics and youth voting and thinking about how the youth plays a role in the process because a lot of times we might feel quite distant to politics. So I think what I wanted to do with this project was merge that gap. And my history teacher, Miss Parnell and I worked together throughout the whole term. And so this was just like a normal class where we had a syllabus, we created one together. We had assignments, discussions and for me, the favorite.

What about this study was the freedom of it? So essentially, I would come in and have a one to one conversation with her, just ask each other questions. And yeah, it was, it was so great to have a personalized study for me. So that's where it all started. And the democracy was the end product of that independent project. So Democracy Day came along and the process of getting that approved was going through obviously talking with administration, thinking about how that's going to change the scheduling. But again, it was a complicated sort of process, but it wouldn't have been possible if the faculty weren't supportive. So they were very, very supportive of this.

Initiative, um. And after it was approved, we put together a 25 member committee and the planning sort of began over the summer and throughout the fall term and democracy happened. So yeah.

Awesome. So a great question and I would love to hear from both Andrew and Kyle on this question because we got it a lot before I submitted this early submissions. But now since that people have started started to meet our Laurentians, this is a big question of time management. So the official question is can you talk about how you manage the workload of?

All the different activities you do, how are you a super active leader and community member while also being a varsity athlete and involved in other aspects of school life?

Yeah. So I can go first. Yeah. I think the main resources that I rely on is it might sound very minimal and trivial, but at the start of every school year, they give out a red scheduling sort of academic calendar that you can use. And I've found those super helpful because you can essentially plan out your week, month or even year if you're ambitious, if you want to, just so that you can pretty much see what events you have coming up. And I think as long as you sort of start planning, I guess in events, there's a lot of opportunities for you.

To get ahead of your work, if you know there's a track meet coming up or like a soccer game in the weekend, you're going to try and front load. And sometimes even if you plan ahead, like you might get swamped with work, which I've gone through that process as well. But there are opportunities like consultation. So consultation is at Lawrenceville, a designated time, I believe four times a week where you can go and talk to your teachers one-on-one. You can ask them questions if you have a concept that's confusing. I use consultation law for math because sometimes I might not follow along.

100% during my math classes. Then I can stop by and ask them more about that particular concept and also run through some practice problems before test. So consultation is a great resource for me to utilize. And also every student is paired with a academic advisor. And I think an advisor is really, really, really, really important because they provided me with a lot of guidance in terms of prioritizing and also managing a lot of these different elements of school life. So essentially, at the end of each week in your calendar, you can sort of make a list of all your priorities.

And sometimes the things that you have to do first might not be the things that you most enjoy, but you just have to get them done. And I think just talking with my advisor and going through the priorities have been really helpful for me. So I would say consultation that red academic calendar that everyone gets and advisors are super helpful.

Yeah, I mean, I think I'd echo a lot of Kyle sentiments, but my biggest thing for managing my time is the philosophy of just minimizing surprises. So my first thing, the first thing I do every Sunday morning is get out my personal planner and write down everything that I need to do for the week each day. So that includes homework assignments, club meetings. I thought I'd practices athletic games just so that I kind of know in the back of my head what I have coming up.

Yeah.

Because, you know, Lawrence was a place where, I mean, how many emails did we get today, Kyle? Like 50, right? Like, there are so many things coming at you at all times, but you know, keeping track of them and making sure that you're never surprised of what's happening or at least minimizing the surprises that are coming at you. Something that I found really helps me manage my time.

Awesome. So Kyle, one last question. When you were choosing your school a couple years ago, was it hard, easy and and you know, what advice would you give to students that are applying right now?

Yeah, I would agree with Andrew. It was extremely easy for me. I think the main reason that I was really, I applied in the 1st place was I mentioned those reasons earlier. But the House system really did it for me in terms of like making my decision. Because as soon as you come here, even if you can't find necessarily like straight away like a community to sort of rely on, there's always a house you can go back and there's always a set of House members that you can always talk to. At the end of the day, talk about if you're facing any challenges, you can always start with your house.

Right. So honestly, the house system is great here because there's obviously the spirit of competition, but there's also a place where you can always call home when you're struggling or if you just need someone to talk to. And you know, my freshman year as well, like because everyone was new, everyone was sort of figuring out what was going on, you can always knock on someone's door, go to like dinner with them. And so there's, there's, I think the house community, the way it's set up is just there to support you and make sure that you're settling well. And in terms of my tip for applications?

I would like to probably suggest I mean similar to what Avianna said about like the little things that might not seem significant. I I would emphasize those bits as well because so when I was in middle school, I did this club called Dead Post Society. So if you guys, if any of you watched the movie, you probably know what it is. But it was literally once a week where we met in the secret area and just like read poems for 30 minutes pretty much. And you know, I thought it wasn't going to be that big of a deal when I wrote it down in my application, but I think that just showed up.

Other side of my identity that might not have necessarily been shown in my interview or my application essay. So really think about the different elements that make you unique and stand out. And so obviously carry on with the activities that are, you know, you spend a lot of time in. But also think about those things that mean a lot to you and might seem trivial but are going to be really important in the long run. Yeah.

Awesome. Thank you so much Kyle, so much there. And so Next up we are going to have Jackie join us. And so once Jackie joins us, we will dive a little deeper into what it's like to be.

Uh day student at Lawrenceville. So Jack, go ahead and tell me. Tell everyone your name, the house that you're in, whether or not it's the best house on campus, and then tell us about the things that you're involved in here on campus and why you ultimately chose Lawrenceville.

Can you hear me now?

There we go, girl. We're good.

3.

Hi, my name is Jackie. I'm in Kirby, which is obviously the best house. I think miss staying would even vouch for that. That's where she's sitting right now. And then I am a prefect and Kirby and I was also the House President and a prefect is basically a senior that's still a part of the House. Once they kind of finish out their junior year, they're selected after an interview process. So that's me and three other girls. Two of them are borders and two of us are day students and I am also on the Honor Council.

So I work with Lucas who want to mentioned earlier, I work with him for disciplinary stuff relating to that. I am also a tour guide kind of. I've worked with a lot of stuff that missing does. And then I'm also the executive of residential life on the school yearbook, all iPod. So I basically just help manage that sector of the yearbook, which is so much fun. And then I also was the football media manager this year, which was so random.

That's so fun, and it's honestly one of the best experiences I've had so far at Lawrenceville. And the reason I chose Lawrenceville is because I I loved the house system and I just thought it would be a really cool experience to try and feel out, and I love it.

Wonderful, Jack. So go ahead and tell us first we're going to have you highlight, can you please describe the relationship between day students and boarding students and then also mention how do day students get involved in the house? Are they around, are they not around? What's how does that work?

So yeah, so my favorite thing about being a day student is that you can either stay on campus as long as you like, or you can leave whatever you want to during the day. But as a day student, I spend so much time on campus. I was there last night until one in the morning staying, which was so much fun, but also completely by choice and all of my best friends on campus.

Our borders, which is something that I think is really cool and fun, just because everybody I know is from different areas. And in the summer I get to go visit them or they come and visit me. And it's also a nice thing because people can leave campus and come to my house maybe just to watch football games on Sundays or just do like a Taco night with my mom, which is something I love doing. But yeah, being a day student is definitely an interesting experience just because you get the best of both worlds, you get to come on campus.

However, often you want, and you also get just as many academic and extracurricular experiences and opportunities as borders do. So as a as a day student. Last year I was my House President, and the year before that there House President was also at a student and she ended up becoming the Student Council president, actually. And then this year it's also a day student. So we even get to do just as much as supporters do, but we do get to come and go as often as we like.

If I could add on, having decent friends will be one of the most advantageous and significant things you'll do at Lawrenceville. My friend grants Mom makes the greatest dumplings I've ever like. It's insane. So if you come to Lawrenceville, please get Jason. Friends, I beg you.

I always like to say that our day students get to have their cake and eat it too, because they get to come here, you know, first thing in the morning they get dropped off in the house, they're with all their friends, and then kind of from right there in that moment.

The fact that they just got dropped off and didn't sleep here the night before, all of that kind of goes away. I'm not gonna say I'm negligent in any way, but Jackie, sometimes I forget that she's a day student because I was on duty in the house last night and she was, I was kicking her out at a very wee hour in the morning. I'm simply because, you know, the weekends there are more day students that are staying in the house than we have borders that are leaving the the permissions that I'm signing for a Saturday night.

Is that the three day students are sleeping over and so and so's room and and getting the emails from the parents because that's that's they want to be a part of it. And that's what's really I think awesome about the dynamic between our day and boarding students. And I think that has a lot to do with the House system simply because you're part of it from from start to finish. So Jackie can you kind of take us through what the daily schedule is like. We got a couple questions about this prior and now a couple of come through.

As people are talking about all the things they do, how are you fitting it in the day and what is the day structure like?

Yes. So Mondays are definitely like the busiest days, and you go pretty much 8:00 to 3:30 classes. You get couple breaks in between like consult and stuff and advisory, but that's like your busiest day. And then every other day pretty much ends at 3:30, except for Wednesdays and Saturdays, which are both half days. You start around 9:00 and around 12, and then you have sports. Depends on what level of sport you're playing, whether it's just lifetime.

Which is either like working out or like checking into the gym. If you're doing a JV sport or a varsity sport, you'll spend a certain amount of time after classes doing that, and then after that you have club meetings or just you spend time around the house, you eat dinner with your friends, and yeah, it's pretty. It's pretty straightforward once you get a set schedule. I have a free period. Also, as a senior. Everybody has one for the most part, except for your sophomore year and part of your freshman year, and so mine is.

First period in the morning. So that's a great thing I love as a day student is that I sleep in and you know, I cut down, I sleep in, come to school later than some of my friends, and I just do my day and I stay there till usually around 11:00 PM, just again solely by choice because I love being on campus. But also, you know, there are some days where I'm just so busy and I just want to go home. And that's something great as a day student is that I can either go sit in my friend's room, do work, or I can go check into the.

February do work. Or I can just go home and, you know, eat my mom's food instead of the dining hall, which is sometimes kind of nice. But yeah, but the daily schedule, it is pretty busy. But usually you spend a lot of it with your friends, especially if you're in clubs and stuff, because that's where you. That's especially where I've made a lot of my friends. It's just through doing a lot of extracurricular stuff together. And if not, you know, we get to go into each other's houses from certain periods during the day, or I can go into the rooms and.

Hang out there if they're not in my house, which I think is really fun.

Awesome. Andrew, anything to add to a daily schedule and what that looks like?

Yeah, I mean, maybe just add some timestamps to Jackie's explanation. You know, you start around 8 ish, 9 ish depending on what classes you take, and you run through class up until lunch, which is usually around 12 on most days. And then lunch is about an hour and a half. And then classes from one to three, 330 again depending on what classes you take. And then most sports start around 3:00.

Three and almost all will end by 5:00 and 5:00. O'clock is when most students had to dinner.

And after 5:00 o'clock you'll either be, you know, have some free time to hang out with your with your housemates, hang out with your friends like Jackie said, or, you know, around six. 6:30 is when most club meetings will start happening around campus, and those are usually run until 8:00 o'clock. And 8:00 o'clock is like this big.

Benchmark in the day because that's when study Hall will start.

So in within the houses, borders will go to their rooms and start working on their homework. They students can choose to stay or they can go home and work on their homework there, or you can check into the library and do it there if you have some group projects you want to collaborate on. But study Hall is very helpful because it gives you that dedicated time to do your work. So when you get distracted talking to your friends or you know, you stay out on the sports field for a little bit too long and you should study Hall really brings you back.

To make sure that you're getting your work in before the next step.

I Simon, oftentimes during that study hall time, I'll be on duty and I'll look to the common room and there's Jackie and there's a couple of our other day students because they know that I'm doing homework in the house or in the library is probably a little bit better than doing homework at home with their dog and the TV on and the siblings. It's a pretty distraction free space. So Jack, any last minute?

Encouraging words or advice to these potential future Laurentians as they are in the application process.

Yeah, I think the most important thing is just to remember to be yourself just in every part of like the interview process, the admissions process, because every single one of us is very different, especially people. As you get older through Lawrenceville, you meet so many different types of people. And it's, you know, it's not necessarily just like your grades, even though they are important. Like, I'm not a top student, but I do get involved in a lot of different things and I do try.

Very hard, but it's not necessarily just one aspect that of you that people want to see. They want to know everything about you. And so just make sure you include everything and are just very true to what's important to you and make sure you emphasize that.

Nope.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Jackie. Have a great rest of your night. And Next up, last but not least, we have our good friend Reed. So he's gonna hop on here. Hopefully he hasn't left us because I placed him last line up. There he is. So read go ahead with your name, your house, your involvement here on campus, any leadership and tell us why you ended up choosing Lawrenceville.

Alright, my name is Reed Farrington and I'm a fourth forum border in Griswold, which I agree with Bono that it's definitely the best house on campus. I service the Griswold House president and I've loved my time in the House.

I play varsity tennis. I've been on the team since my freshman year. I also wrestled and play House football, which is intramural flag football against the other boys houses. And house football is one of my favorite Lawrenceville traditions is always super fun just to get to meet the guys in your house. I have leadership in model UN and I'm the President of the Art History Club and I'm also on the board of the Lawrenceville Historical Review. So when it came to choosing Lawrenceville, I applied to a bunch of different boarding schools. Don't ultimately chose Lawrenceville.

The House system and the location. The House system sets Lawrenceville apart from all the other boarding schools really. And it makes campus a closer community as you basically get, as Bono always said when he was President and grace, you have 40 other brothers in the house. And the town of Lawrenceville is really great because you have restaurants, a Barber shop, a bakery and ice cream parlor, and yeah, a bunch of stuff that's all considered part of campus because all of Main Street you're allowed to go to until 8:00 PM, check in at night.

So split between Lawrenceville and another school. But it was really the the House system that pushed me over the edge.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Reed. So we're going to fire off your question. Can you share how once you've got to Lawrenceville, the school and the advisors and the people around you helped you make that transition from 8th grade to high school during your first year?

Yeah, sure. So I'll start talking about the academic transition and then shift to the social transition. So second formers get to be pass fail for four of their six classes during the fall term. So everything besides math and your language because those are with other grades.

But the pass fail allows you to understand Harkness, which was new to me. When I came to the school I was at a lecture based school like Kyle and so you have you have pass fail so you don't have the stress of grades, just as you get to meet your teachers, meet your classmates. So that was really, really helpful. You also have consultation four days a week, which like Kyle said is a 35 minute block where you get to visit your teachers and get one-on-one help. Also, everyone has an advisor who helps with anything they need and it's really a valuable resource.

So next, socially, the school has a ton of different ways to help new students get to know each other. I have an identical twin brother who used to do everything with, but we decided to go to separate boarding schools, so I was pretty nervous showing up my freshman year, but Lawrence will quickly felt like home.

Like guano, and this is being said, the freshman boys and girls live across from each other and they've the bowl between them. So like Bono, I was probably in the bowl 3/4 of my freshman year. And so you just gonna hang out, play sports, get to know each other.

And the school hosts a bunch of different Saturday night events, like karaoke in the bathhouse, which I did last night, or dodgeball competitions, movie nights, guest speakers. So a bunch of different stuff. And they also have freshman specific activities, so you get to know everybody else in your class, especially during the fall term.

And living in the same dorm as all of your classmates really gives you the chance to get to know everyone in your grade.

Wonderful. That's super helpful. And so let's talk a little bit about how you then once adjusted.

How you started to get involved in leadership at Lawrenceville and tell us a little bit about how you chose what to do and what to devote your time to?

Florence feels really a place that you can choose to pursue passions you had ahead of time, but also to try new things. So junior year this year I decided to give wrestling a try. I never done it before. I never really had a winter sport I did squash because I thought similar to tennis. But this year I just decided to try it out. And it's a ton of fun. But Lawrence has plenty of opportunities to get leadership positions.

So I have leadership in model UN and when I started model UN during my freshman year, I didn't get selected to go to any of the conferences. I wasn't particularly confident in it, but by my sophomore year I started to go to the meets, like at one at Yale wanted PDS, which is nearby school.

And then I applied for leadership in the spring of last year, and now I've got a board position at the club and I'm prepping for a meet currently. So it's also pretty easy to get your own club here at the school. Our friend and I started the art History Club, which now has over 200 members. Water is a part of it.

And at the House level, the House system lets you gain leadership like Bonner was talking about earlier. With the House counsels, every house has a slightly separate set of positions, but my house has President, a social Rep who organizes Saturday night events with other houses. Community service Rep and academic Rep, Diversity Rep, third form rap for the sophomores.

And a sustainability Rep so there are a ton of different ways to get involved at both the House and school wide levels.

Awesome. And so one question that we we got here in the chat is the topic of study hall. And so if you wouldn't mind read explaining a little bit about what time does your study Hall, does study hall start for you? What kind of space do you like to study in and then when does study hall end and what about lights out?

Sure. So I'm in study Hall right now. It starts at, so you have eight at 8:00 PM check in in your house and then by 8:15 you're supposed to be in your room, door propped open and really just focusing and getting your work done. So from 8:00 to 8:15, my house has concessions, which we have a mini fridge and snacks downstairs where they sell snacks and that money goes towards the house. So then you work from 8:15 to 10.

And after 10, you're not in study Hall anymore, but it's, technically speaking, quiet hours. So you have to be quiet, like mindful that other people probably have gone to bed early or are still wrapping up work. So from 10:15 to 11, you're getting to spend some more time with the guys in the house, or you're finishing up your work. And then 11:15 is lights out where you're expected to be in your room. The lights are out, your door is closed, and you go to bed.

Because we all value sleep correct.

You have.

One thing I will say is something that I've experienced as someone in the house is that it takes a little bit, but you eventually realize what works best for you. And so we have individuals here in my house here, and I've my husband and I have also lived in a boy's house. I'm not going to Battle 2 Griswold men right here in terms of what house is the best house in the circle. But what I will say is it was quite interesting to see how students have really figured out what works best for them.

For some students, it really is. They work until 9:30, and then they get something that's called early lights, and then they go to bed by 9:45. They might be the student, though, that is waking up at 6, coming downstairs, showered, ready for the day and doing some work in the common room. Or there's a good number of students that I encounter across the street at the Starbucks, sitting there and doing work before school. When I'm, you know, treating myself to a latte, they're also, they're doing work. So students really do have the freedom.

To figure out what works best for them. So read any last minute parting words to all these potential Laurentians. Any any advice on for you that you know branching out and going somewhere that might even make them a little nervous or scare them?

I'd say just follow your interests, follow your passions. Lawrenceville's just a great place to try new things, so it was different from anything I've done before. But I've loved my time here and I'm sure you will too.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Reed. Thank you for joining us. Have a great night when you get back to study Hall.

So I would just like to give a huge round of applause to our panelists. They crushed it tonight. I am very aware that there have been so many questions thrown into the chat that we didn't get to, you know, tonight we really didn't touch on the specifics of the athletics program or the arts program. We danced, we talked a little bit and danced around talking about Harkness with Kyle. We didn't, you know, we, we talked about experiential learning and we talked about a house. There is so much to Lawrenceville.

And you really can't fit it into an hour. So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to throw into the chat there that if you have, if you asked a question that was not answered, please send me an e-mail. And what I would be happy to do is forward along that question to a specific panelist or I can answer it myself. I would be happy to kind of continue any sort of conversation that started here tonight. I would be happy to.

Keep that going. I do have one final question for Andrew before I go into some application reminders. But Andrew.

Hate to bring it up, but obviously you are a fifth former and you will be graduating in the spring. So what will you miss the most about this this place?

That's a heavy one.

Do you?

I mean, when you spend four years at a place, you grow attached to so many different aspects of it. But what I miss most honestly, is those first couple months of freshman year.

Where everything felt new and sparkly and and, you know, it was really like a kid at the carnival trying to experience everything you can.

Still the time to do it.

The, you know, those those late nights on Saturdays and the bull where, you know, Oh my gosh, there's this night I remember very vividly when we all just started, someone brought a guitar and we started singing, you know, campfire songs without a campfire, but.

You know, and that was like the the second week of freshman year and I remember that being a bonding experience that we all talked about to this day. So I'll miss you know, forming those connections at the beginning.

Especially my freshman year, you know, transitioning from a small town into a sort of larger school with all these different types of people.

I think that's what I'll miss most.

They will also leave my information in the chat as well. If you want to reach out to me, leave my name and my e-mail. Feel free, I will answer. And yeah, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

Fabulous. So a couple of housekeeping items is just here. We this will be recorded. You can pass along the link once it's up on the travel and events page. A big thing to remember is that our admission and scholarship aid deadline is January 15th and that is coming up just over a month away. I cannot.

Believe it. The other thing to note is that interview appointments are filling up quickly and the interview is a required aspect of your application. If anything, it's just a conversation because we want to get to know you. So I really encourage you to schedule your interviewer or your interview if you haven't already, and then if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. I put my information in the chat there, but also follow up with anyone that you've already been in contact with here at Lawrenceville, so please feel free.

To reach back out to your interviewer, say that I spent Sunday night chatting with Miss Ding, but I wanted to ask you about this and if you've been in contact with any program directors, perhaps a coach, perhaps the director of the orchestra, what might have you. They do want to hear from you, so please continue any conversations you're having. And if you've been to campus and you had a tour guide and they gave you their contact info, they want to hear from you, I promise you are not a bother. They want to answer your questions and continue to talk to you.

About Lawrenceville so.

I tried to keep it under an hour, but it's it's not possible when you're trying to talk about all the things that Lawrenceville has. And as I mentioned earlier, I know that we did not touch upon everything. It's basically impossible. And so please do reach out if you have specific academic, Athletic House, 9th grade transition, we barely talked about PG programs are coming in as an 11th grader. I'm happy to guide anyone with questions about that. So.

We will be hosting another one of these in January. It'll probably be a rinse and repeat. Andrew will put on the full admissions face again and he'll be ready to go. But please feel free to join us again. But otherwise, have a wonderful rest of your night, your morning. And please be safe and stay healthy. Alrighty. And as always, you know, go big red. OK, bye now.