Phillips Academy

Overview

Phillips Academy Andover is the oldest incorporated high school in the United States, established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr. Phillips's uncle Dr. John Phillips founded Phillips Exeter Academy three years later. Phillips Academy's endowment stood around $800 million in June 2011, the fourth-highest of any American secondary school. Andover is subject to the control of a board of trustees, headed by Peter Currie, business executive and former Netscape Chief Financial Officer, who took over as president of the Phillips Academy Board of Trustees on July 1, 2012. On November 14, 2012, John G. Palfrey, Jr., Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School, was named the 15th Head of School.

Phillips Academy admitted only boys until the school became coeducational in 1973, the year of Phillips Academy's merger with Abbot Academy, a boarding school for girls also in Andover. Abbot Academy, founded in 1828, was the first incorporated school for girls in New England. Then-headmaster Theodore Sizer oversaw the merger.

Andover traditionally educated its students for Yale, just as Phillips Exeter Academy educated its students for Harvard, and Lawrenceville prepped students for Princeton.

The school's student-run newspaper, The Phillipian, is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the United States, the next oldest secondary school newspaper being The Exonian, Phillips Exeter Academy's weekly. The Phillipian was first published on July 28, 1857, and has been published regularly since 1878. It retains financial and editorial independence from Phillips Academy, having completed a $500,000 endowment drive in 2014. Students comprise the editorial board and make all decisions for the paper, consulting with two faculty advisors at their own discretion. The Philomathean Society is the oldest high school debate society in the nation, established in 1825.

Phillips Academy also runs a five-week summer session for approximately 600 students entering grades 8 through 12.

History

Phillips Academy was founded during the American Revolution as an all-boys school in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr.

Phillips Academy's traditional rival is Phillips Exeter Academy, which was established three years later in Exeter, New Hampshire, by Samuel Phillips' uncle, Dr. John Phillips. The two schools still maintain a rivalry. The football teams have met nearly every year since 1878, making it the oldest high school rivalry in the country. In 1882, the first high school lacrosse teams were formed at Phillips Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy and the Lawrenceville School.

Several figures from the revolutionary period are associated with the school. George Washington spoke at the school in its first year, and Washington's nephews later attended the school. John Hancock signed the school's articles of incorporation. The great seal of the school was designed by Paul Revere.

For a hundred years of its history, Phillips Academy shared its campus with the Andover Theological Seminary, which was founded on Phillips Hill in 1807 by orthodox Calvinists who had fled Harvard College after it appointed a liberal Unitarian theologian to a professorship of divinity. The Andover Theological Seminary was independent from Phillips Academy but shared the same board of directors. In 1908, the seminary departed Phillips Academy, leaving behind its key buildings: academic building Pearson Hall (formerly a chapel), and dormitories Foxcroft Hall and Bartlet Hall. These buildings later became part of the Andover campus, which was expanded in the 1920s and 1930s around this historic core with new buildings of similar Georgian style: Samuel Phillips Hall, George Washington Hall, Samuel Morse Hall, Paul Revere Hall, Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, Commons, the Addison Gallery of American Art and Cochran Chapel. Small portions of Andover's campus were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park and himself a graduate of the school.

Revere's design of the school's seal incorporated bees, a beehive, and the sun. The school's primary motto, Non Sibi, located in the sun, means "not for oneself". The school's second motto, Finis Origine Pendet, meaning "the end depends upon the beginning", is scrolled across the bottom of the seal.

Phillips was one of the schools where students on the Chinese Educational Mission were sent to study by the Qing dynasty government from 1878 to 1881. One of the students, Liang Cheng, later became the Chinese ambassador to the United States.

Phillips Academy curriculum and extracurricular activities include music ensembles, 30 competitive sports, a campus newspaper, a radio station, and a debate club. In 1973 Phillips Academy merged with neighboring Abbot Academy, which was founded in 1829 as one of the first schools for girls in New England and named for Sarah Abbot. After existing at Phillips Academy almost since its inception, secret societies were officially disbanded in 1949. Despite this, at least one secret society continues to exist.

Phillips Academy is one of only a few private high schools (others include Roxbury Latin and St. Andrew's School) in the United States that attained need-blind admissions in 2007 and 2008, and it has continued this policy through the present. In 2013 it received 3,029 applications and accepted 13%, a record low acceptance rate for the school. 79% of those accepted went on to matriculate at the Academy.

Academics

Phillips Academy follows a trimester program, where a school year is divided into three terms, with each term lasting approximately 10 weeks. Classes are held from Monday to Friday, with the first period of the day beginning at 8:00 am and the last period ending at 2:45 pm. On Wednesdays, classes end early at 1:00 pm in order to provide more time for athletics, clubs, and community service.

Many courses are year-long, while others last only one to two terms. Most students take five courses each trimester. Four-year students at Phillips Academy are required to take courses in English, foreign language, mathematics (through calculus), history and social science, laboratory science, art, music, philosophy and religious studies, and physical education. Students may also choose to pursue an independent research program in a topic of choice under the guidance of faculty members if there are no more courses suitable for them in one or more disciplines.

Andover does not rank students, and rather than a four-point GPA scale, Phillips Academy calculates GPA using a six-point system. The Office of the Dean of Studies claims that there is no formal equivalent between the zero-to-six system and a conventional letter-grade system. However, a six is considered outstanding and is (theoretically) rarely awarded, a five is the lowest honors grade, and a two is the lowest passing grade. Grades earned in classes are sometimes weighted at the discretion of the instructor, and the school provides no uniform scale for converting percent scores into grades on the six-point scale.

Academic facilities

Student facilities

The school also has dormitories to house the roughly 800 students that board. These buildings range in size from housing as few as four to as many as 40 students. Two notable dorms are America House, where the song America was penned, and Stowe House, where American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) lived while her husband taught at the Andover Theological Seminary. Stowe is also buried on campus in a cemetery behind Samuel Phillips Hall. None of the original buildings remain; the oldest dorm is Blanchard House, built in 1789. Several dorms are named after prominent alumni, such as Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War during World War II, and men instrumental in the founding of the Academy, such as Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. Shortly before his death in 1799, President George Washington delivered a speech from a second-floor window in Carriage House, now a dorm, to the citizens of Andover. Also located on campus is The Andover Inn. Built in 1930, The Andover Inn is a New England country inn with 30 rooms and meeting space.

Museums

The Addison Gallery of American Art is an art museum given to the school by alumnus Thomas Cochran. Its permanent collection includes Winslow Homer's Eight Bells, along with work by John Singleton Copley, Benjamin West, Thomas Eakins, James McNeill Whistler, Frederic Remington, George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella, and Andrew Wyeth. The museum also features collections in American photography and decorative arts, with silver and furniture dating back to precolonial America, and a collection of colonial model ships. A rotating schedule of exhibitions is open to students and the public alike. In the spring of 2006, the Phillips Academy Board of Trustees approved a $30-million campaign to renovate and expand the Addison Gallery. Construction on the Addison began in the middle of 2008 and, as of September 7, 2010, is complete, and the museum is once again open to the Phillips Academy community and the broader community of the town of Andover.

The Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology was founded in 1901 and is now "one of the nation's major repositories of Native American archaeological collections". The collection includes materials from the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Mexico and the Arctic, and range from Paleo Indian (more than 10,000 years ago) to the present day. Since the early 1990s, the museum has been at the forefront of compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It currently serves as an educational museum for the students of Phillips Academy, but is also accessible to researchers, public schools, and visitors by appointment.

History

Athletic competition has long been a part of the Phillips Academy tradition. As early as 1805, football was being played on school grounds, according to a letter that Henry Pearson wrote his father, Eliphalet Pearson in 1805, saying, "I cannot write a long letter as I am very tired after having played at football all this afternoon." The first ever interscholastic football game between high schools was in 1875, when Phillips Academy played against Adams Academy. One of the oldest schoolboy rivalries in American football is the Andover/Exeter competition, started in 1878. That year, the first Andover/Exeter baseball game took place, and The Phillipian returned from hiatus, named its first Board and began publishing regularly. Similar boarding school traditions include the Choate-Deerfield rivalry and Hotchkiss-Taft rivalry.

Today, Phillips Academy is an athletic powerhouse among New England private schools. Since the Constitution of the Phillips Academy Athletic Association was drawn up in 1903 with the objective of "Athletics for All," Andover has established 29 different interscholastic programs, and 44 intramural or instructional programs, including fencing, tai chi, figure skating, and yoga. Andover Athletes have been successful in winning over 110 New England Championships in these different sports over the last three decades alone, and have even had the chance to compete abroad, in such competitions as the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley, England, for crew.

The athletic directors of Andover and the other members of the Eight Schools Association (ESA) compose the Eight Schools Athletic Council, which organizes sports events and tournaments among ESA schools. Andover is also a member of the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council. As a way to encourage all students to try new things and stay healthy, all students are required to have an athletic commitment each term. A range of instructional sports are available for those who wish to try new things, and for those already established in a sport, most teams have at least a varsity and junior varsity squad.

Sports

Many sports are offered:

Tuition

For the academic year 2016/17, Phillips charges boarders $52,100 and day students up to $40,500 per year, making it more expensive than HMC schools and amongst the most expensive boarding schools in the world. However, the school offers need-blind admission, with 48% of students receiving financial aid and 13% of students on full scholarship.

Affiliations

Andover is a member of the Eight Schools Association, begun informally in 1973–74 and formalized in 2006. Andover was host to the annual meeting of ESA in April 2008. It is also a member of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization, founded in 1956. There is a seven-school overlap of membership between the two groups. In addition, Andover is a member of the G20 Schools group, an international organization of independent secondary schools.

Notable alumni

Andover has educated two American presidents, six Medal of Honor recipients (2 - Civil War, 1 - Spanish-American War, 2 - World War II, 1 - Korean War), and many other notable people. The school's alumni are often referred to as "Old Phillipians".

In popular culture

Andover, often linked with Exeter, is often understood symbolically as an "elite New England prep school," connoting privilege. Writer William S. Dietrich II described Andover and other elite prep schools as being part of a "WASP ascendancy" during the first half of the twentieth century. Elite universities such as Yale and Princeton tended to accept disproportionate percentages of prep school students while using quotas to deny admission to minority applicants. An account in Time in 1931 described the two schools as having "flourished", and that both schools were "twin giants of prep schools in size and in prestige", essentially feeder schools for Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Yale, according to Joseph Lieberman. A cultural image from the 1960s was young men who had "perfect white teeth" and wore Lacoste shirts, with a look easy to identify by young women at the time:

They can tell just by looking at him whether a boy goes to an Eastern prep school or not. Not only that, they can tell which prep school, usually St. Paul's or Hotchkiss or Groton or Exeter or Andover, or whatever; just by checking his hair and his clothes.

The WASP ascendancy began to break down around the 1960s and onwards when the admissions policies of elite prep schools and universities began to emphasize merit rather than affluence. Still, images of exclusivity based on unfairness tended to remain. Gore Vidal suggested that Andover and Exeter had a "style that was quite witty." If the WASP ascendancy has waned, the image of unaffordability continues to persist, with one writer deploring how the schools cost $30,000 and more annually. Recent reports from graduates, however, paint a picture of educational excellence and diversification. For example, Cristina Hartmann, who attended Andover from 2001-2003, described the school as having a need blind admissions policy. She suggested the student body was mostly diversified, and that the school had dedicated buildings for specific subject areas, was challenging academically, and had flexible teachers and peers who were "smart and driven". She elaborated that Andover provided two sign language interpreters, free of charge, to help her academically to cope with her deafness. While the overall image may be changing to one which emphasizes greater diversity and respect for individual talent, the image of the school in the media continues to connote privilege, money, exclusivity, prestige, academic quality, and sometimes negatively connotes chumminess or clubbiness or arrogance.

The school is often mentioned in books and film, and on television. Some examples include: