STEM at Groton and Deerfield

RandoParent
Fri, 16 May 2025 21:14:01 +0000

I can speak a little bit about the STEM curriculum at Groton. As a parent, I have less to say about extracurrics and clubs. But first, I start with a long premable that you’re free to skip.

PREAMBLE: At a high-level, I quibble with the characterization that Groton is humanities oriented, though I know that’s the reputation. I think it’s more accurate to say that Groton is not a good place for kids who want to focus exclusively on STEM because:

1. the school does have a very well-rounded and demanding curriculum that they expect all kids to pass through, meaning that there’s no safe haven for the STEM-only kid who wants to avoid intensive and sustained research, reading and writing, and

2. the extracurricular requirements are all the traditional sports or theater/dance options and do not, to my knowledge, contain anything like robotics, though it might be possible for a student to petition to create a STEM-focused faculty-sponsored activity for a single term if, for example, the student were working on a special project or competition of some sort.

The point is that the school’s expectation is for students to learn together in a reasonably common curriculum and participate and sweat together with their classmates in established and physically strenuous extracurriculars; and this might not appeal to a certain (and reasonably common) type of STEM-focused kid. Athletics-for-all was a huge part of the school’s founding ethos and I don’t see them giving up on that anytime soon. /END OF PREAMBLE

With that out of the way, on to the curriculum:

MATH: Essentially a three-year requirement ending after Fifth Form (11th grade), though a majority of students take it through graduation. A handful of students (but it’s a small school) take Calc BC in Second or Third Form, though Fourth and Fifth Form are more common.

Standard courses that are offered each year run through linear algebra, with select topics / student tutorials offered after that, in addition to AP stats and CS, which students would likely fit into their schedule in the final two years.

SCIENCE: Standard AP and non-AP offerings in bio (or ecology), chem, and physics, plus a smattering of electives. The technical requirements, I believe, is for two science courses with lab if you’re doing 4 years there. I think it’s quite common for 4-year students to start in bio or ecology, then take (AP) chemistry in Fourth Form (10th grade), and (AP) Physics in Fifth Form (11th).

The school runs a summer program (for Groton students only) after Third Form called GRACE that allows kids to study two subjects. The most popular GRACE subject is the AP chemistry on-ramp, which helps kids hit the ground running in the fall of their Fourth Form. Approximately 45% of Groton Third Formers participate in GRACE, and a strong majority of them take chem, which means that probably 1/3 of the Fourth Form class has been studying some chem when the school year starts.

Electives generally open up in the final two years and there’s a decent selection of courses in HS engineering, astronomy, etc. The headmaster was trained as a chemist and loves to teach organic chemistry, which is a fairly popular elective (oddly enough).

What else? The school regularly has a handful of qualifiers, semi-finalists and occasionally finalists in several of the major STEM competitions (e.g., AIME, Chem Olympiad, Regeneron, etc.). But the fact of the matter – which will turn a lot of kids and parents off – is that the school generally wants students to focus their time and efforts on campus within the community of learners that they’ve carefully selected and developed. The time demands from the required classes and activities are pretty onerous, probably even more so that peer schools (search the forum for references to Groton being a “grind”). Students who want to do their own thing are probably a better fit elsewhere.