Princeton Day School is a private coeducational day school located in Princeton, in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, serving students in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The largest division is the Upper School (grades 9–12), with an enrollment of about 400. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1989.
As of the 2019–20 school year, the school had an enrollment of 933 students, plus 16 in PreK, and 122.6 classroom teachers (on an FTE basis), for a student–teacher ratio of 7.6:1. The school's student body was 81.4% (759) White, 7.6% (71) Asian, 6.8% (63) Hispanic and 4.3% (40) Black.
Of the 2011 graduating class of Princeton Day School seniors, a third were honored as semi-finalists or commended scholars in the National Merit Scholarship Program. In the five years through 2018, the most common schools for members of the PDS graduating classes were New York University (21), Princeton University (15), Lehigh University (12), University of Chicago (11), Duke University (10), and Boston College (10).
The school is a member of the National Association of Independent Schools, New Jersey Association of Independent Schools and the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools.
History
Founded in 1899, Miss Fine's School in Princeton prepared girls for college with a curriculum including English, French, Latin, history, and mathematics, at a time when women were not expected to attend college, and when only one out of eight children in America went to school at all. For years, in addition to serving as headmistress, May Margaret Fine taught all the subjects but French and even "tended the furnace....often leaving in the middle of Latin class to do it."
"A large shapeless figure [with] a pile of white hair dominated by a bun on the top, which usually slid over to the side of her head by the end of the day," Fine was, despite her appearance, a loved and respected figure. John Finley, editor of The New York Times during the 1910s, wrote of her, "So was the school under her wise and gentle rule a place where happy children grew into her spirited likeness." Fine retired in 1931 and died two years later.
Miss Fine's School moved into what had previously been The Princeton Inn on Bayard Lane in 1924 and included boys from kindergarten through 3rd grade.
In 1924, a group of parents established a 4–9 grade school for boys on Bayard Lane, next to Miss Fine's School. The boys' school was known as Princeton Junior School. The school moved in 1932 to an independent campus with purpose-built buildings at 171 Broadmead in another section of Princeton not far from Palmer Stadium. The name was then changed to Princeton Country Day School (PCD), although in honor of its founding name, the school magazine was called the "Junior Journal." It had large playing fields across the street for football and soccer. In the winter, there was occasionally skating on Carnegie Lake nearby, and while ice hockey was played at Princeton University's Baker Rink. In the spring, there was an annual school fair held as a fundraiser. The school had an excellent academic reputation, and most graduates went on to New England boarding schools for secondary education. The buildings and campus of PCD are now part of Princeton University and used as a nursery school.
Princeton Country Day merged with Miss Fine's School in 1965 to become Princeton Day School, operating on a campus along the Great Road in Princeton.
In September 2005, the school launched the public phase of a five-year $50 million capital campaign, "Investing in Excellence" to support new and renovated facilities and increased endowment for faculty salaries and financial aid that raised a total of $53 million from more than 4,000 contributors.