Buechner then attended the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, graduating in 1943.
While at Lawrenceville, he met the future Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Merrill; their friendship and rivalry inspired the literary ambitions of both.
As Mel Gussow wrote in Merrill's 1995 obituary: "their friendly competition was an impetus for each becoming a writer."
Buechner then enrolled at Princeton University.
His college career was interrupted by—in Buechner's words—"two years of very undistinguished service" (1944–46) in the Army during World War II, "all of it at several different places in the United States," including a post as "chief of the statistical section in Camp Pickett, Virginia."
After the war, he returned to Princeton and graduated with an A.B. in English in 1948 after completing a 77-page-long senior thesis titled "Notes of the Function of Metaphor in English Poetry."
However, as an alumnus, he remained identified as a member of his original Class of 1947.
Regarding his time at Princeton, Buechner commented in an interview: 
I really knew two Princetons.
The first one was during the war, when everybody was being drafted or enlisting.
It was just one drunken farewell party after another.
Nobody did any work.
I didn't learn anything at all.
I was in the Army for two years.
When I came back, I was so delighted to be free again that I buckled down and learned a few things.
Buechner then attended the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, graduating in 1943. While at Lawrenceville, he met the future Pulitzer Prize winning poet James Merrill; their friendship and rivalry inspired the literary ambitions of both. As Mel Gussow wrote in Merrill's 1995 obituary: "their friendly competition was an impetus for each becoming a writer." Buechner then enrolled at Princeton University. His college career was interrupted by—in Buechner's words—"two years of very undistinguished service" (1944–46) in the Army during World War II, "all of it at several different places in the United States," including a post as "chief of the statistical section in Camp Pickett, Virginia." After the war, he returned to Princeton and graduated with an A.B. in English in 1948 after completing a 77-page-long senior thesis titled "Notes of the Function of Metaphor in English Poetry." However, as an alumnus, he remained identified as a member of his original Class of 1947. Regarding his time at Princeton, Buechner commented in an interview: 
I really knew two Princetons. The first one was during the war, when everybody was being drafted or enlisting. It was just one drunken farewell party after another. Nobody did any work. I didn't learn anything at all. I was in the Army for two years. When I came back, I was so delighted to be free again that I buckled down and learned a few things.
Frederick Buechner