(I go to Pingry, but know MANY people/friends who go to NA)
Alright, here we go…
LA - I’ll give this one to NA. They do have a better LA curriculum compared to us. There’s no such thing as an NA student who doesn’t know at least a thousand words you’ve never heard of. However, Pingry is better at writing, and Pingry students often win National competitions. Writing specifically Pingry wins by a longshot, but in general, NA is better.
Math - Slightly to NA
SS - Pingry, amazing robust curriculum, and stellar teachers.
STEM/Visual Arts/Performing Arts/Music - These all go to Pingry easily. Pingry recently upgraded/built a completely new part of the old building (West-Wing). It’s super new and modern and cost tens of millions of dollars with state of the art everything. Better stage, science labs, pretty much everything related to the arts and STEM. Pingry just has a larger endowment and has a much nicer building.
Sports - Equally good and specialize in their own stuff (PIngry → Soccer, NA → Football), I’m not exactly sure about the track team as both of their teams aren’t world-class or anything extraordinary. I’ll call this a draw.
Nuances:
Pingry is, in the long run, better than NA. NA is probably a little bit more relaxed, while Pingry is an “academic pressure cooker”. But if you can handle the homework (more than NA) and high expectations (you get used to it), you’re on your way to a great university. Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, etc. are all within close reach if you can fully harness your potential and truly excel at your skills and talents. Pingry does start later (~8:30) so you’ll get a little extra time to sleep in the morning after all that work. If you don’t handle stress averagely well at all, I think you should go to NA.
Now my synopsis may be the slightest tiniest most minuscule amount possible biased, but hat is kinda expected. It’s hard for you as your daughter has passions in subjects and things one school does better than the other (STEM & LA). She’ll have to come to a crossroads and simply decided what she really really really wants to do. They’re both exceptionally amazing schools and you can’t go wrong with either of them. My friends who go to NA love it and I’m not surprised in the slightest. Hope this helped! 