Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy Andover
Location
Andover , Massachusetts United States
Information
Type	Independent, Boarding
Motto	Non Sibi (Not for One's Self) Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning)
Established	1778
CEEB code	220030
Head of school	John Palfrey
Faculty	212
Grades	9–12
Enrollment	1,138 total 851 boarding 287 day as of 2014-2015
Average class size	13 students
Student to teacher ratio	5:1
Campus	Suburban, 500 acres (2 km2)
Color(s)	Blue and white
Athletics	30 sports
Endowment	US$1 Billion (November 2014)
Tuition	$48,850 boarding, $38,000 day
Website	www.andover.edu

Phillips Academy Andover (also known as Phillips Academy, Andover, or PA) is a co-educational independent boarding preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate (PG) year. The school is located in Andover, Massachusetts, United States, 25 miles north of Boston. The school has a student population of 1,138, and is selective, accepting 13% of applicants.

Overview

Phillips Academy Andover is one of the oldest incorporated high schools in the United States, established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr. Phillips's uncle 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 '74, 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.

A view of Samuel Phillips Hall and the Bicentennial Statue

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 in downtown 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,

The school's student-run newspaper, The Phillipian, is the second oldest secondary school newspaper in the United States, the oldest secondary school newspaper being The Exonian, Phillips Exeter Academy's weekly. The Phillipian was first published on July 28, 1857 has been published regularly since 1878. 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

Student body, Phillips Andover, 1910

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

Phillips Academy's traditional opponent is Phillips Exeter Academy, which was established three years later in Exeter, New Hampshire by Samuel Phillips' uncle, Dr. John Phillips. The two school 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 into, which are masonic symbols. 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 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.

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 only last one to two terms. Most students take five courses each trimester. Four-year students at Phillips Academy are required 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.

The school's grading system, a scale of zero to six, is rather unusual. 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.

Facilities

Academic facilities

• Bulfinch Hall was designed by Asher Benjamin, a student of architect Charles Bulfinch and built in 1819. It is now the English Department building and received renovations during the summer and fall term of 2012. The building now has a new presentation / media room, an elevator and handicap access, a larger teacher lounge (in the former debate room), and more classroom space. The renovations, somewhat controversial, received an overall positive reaction from the student/faculty body and the building is now up to safety and appearance standards.

• The Gelb Science Center, named after alumnus donor Richard L. Gelb, opened for classes in January 2004. The center contains twenty laboratories, classrooms, seminar rooms, instrument rooms, preparatory areas, study-session spaces, and a rooftop astronomical observatory; it is the newest building on campus, having replaced the older Evans Hall which was built in 1963 and demolished following the completion of Gelb.

• Graham House is used by both the school's Psychology Department and the school's psychological counselors.

Graves Hall

• Graves Hall is the music building, with classrooms, a concert hall, practice studios, a Mac computer lab, and the Clift Library, which houses hundreds of vinyl records and more than 6,000 CDs.

• Morse Hall is home to the Math Department, CAMD (Community and Multicultural Development), WPAA— the student-run radio station, and many of the student-run publications, such as The Phillipian, the school newspaper, as well as Pot Pourri, the yearbook. Morse Hall is named after Samuel Morse, who graduated from Phillips Academy in 1805 and later invented the telegraph and Morse code.

• Oliver Wendell Holmes Library (OWHL) was built in 1929 (renovated 1987) and takes its namesake from the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., an 1825 graduate of Phillips Academy. The library houses more than 120,000 fiction and non-fiction books, provides electronic access to more than 47,000 full-text academic titles, and is a member of the NOBLE library consortium. Also available are 140 periodical titles and electronic access to tens of thousands of electronic journals, more than 75 electronic reference sources, audio and electronic books, and DVDs. Located in OWHL is the Garver Room, containing the most comprehensive secondary school reference collection in the country. In the basement and underneath the back entrance patio of OWHL is the Phillips Academy Computer Center (PACC).

Samuel Phillips Hall

• Pearson Hall, one of the oldest structures on campus, is the classics building. The only subjects with classes that meet in Pearson are Latin, Greek, Greek literature, mythology, and etymology. It was named after the school's first headmaster, Eliphalet Pearson. The Board of Trustees had developed plans which would turn Pearson into a Community Center, but this has since been put on hold due to a strong response from students, faculty, and alumni.

• Samuel Phillips Hall was built in 1924 and named after the founder of the school. This building houses the World Languages Department and the History and Social Sciences Department, as well as the "Language Learning Center", a computer lab with video and audio recording programs and equipment designed to supplement classroom work in language classes and verbal language.

Student facilities

Dormitory quadrangle.

Gelb Science center.

• Cochran Chapel is a neo-Georgian church located on the north side of campus, and is the center of religious life on campus for students and faculty. It is also home to the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Community Service Program. The Chapel hosts many concerts, lectures and gatherings throughout the year, and a weekly All School Meeting is held here on Wednesdays.

• Paresky Commons is the school's dining hall. It has four large dining rooms along with three smaller rooms, which may be utilized by classes or speakers for eating in a more personal environment. Students are often intensely loyal to specific dining rooms—lower left, lower right, upper left, and upper right. Commons also houses "Susie's" (originally the Riley Room, and later "the den" until spring 2012), a grill-style student hangout/convenience store, in the basement of Commons. Both Commons and the Riley Room underwent renovations from winter of 2007 until spring of 2009. The temporary dining facility, Uncommons, was located inside the Sumner Smith Hockey Rink. Use of "Uncommons" has since ceased, and the building was converted into a general purpose athletic and test-taking facility in 2010, now called "Smith Center". One concern during the decision to renovate Commons was the issue of the original staircases throughout the building. Worn down from generations of students over the years, these "indented" stairs carried significant sentimental value for both current students and alumni. As a result the original stairs remain a permanent fixture in the new Commons.

• George Washington Hall was built in 1926 and has since undergone many additions and renovations. The building serves numerous functions, including as an administration building (Head of School's office, Dean of Studies, Dean of Students, among others), a post-office (a mail-room), and the Day Student Lounge and locker area. Within GW Hall are the Tang and Steinbach Theaters, a drama classroom (the Drama-Lab) and also set and costuming facilities all used for theatrical and dance productions and courses such as acting, directing, sound and lighting. Connecting GW Hall to the Addison Gallery is an arts wing containing the Elson Art Center classrooms and studios, Gelb art gallery, Polk-Lillard Electronic Imaging and Audio-Visual Center, and the Kemper Auditorium and Underwood Room.

• The Log Cabin is located in the 65-acre (0.26 km²) Cochran Wildlife Sanctuary on the northeastern edge of campus and serves as a place for student groups to hold meetings as well as sleep-overs.

In addition to the above-mentioned facilities, the school also includes a number of dormitories to serve 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 patriotic hymn 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

Winslow Homer's Eight Bells, part of the Addison Gallery's Permanent Collection

Main article: Addison Gallery of American Art

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.

Main article: Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology

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.

Athletics

History

An Andover crew races on the Merrimack River.

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.

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:

Fall athletic offerings

• Cross country
• Field hockey
• Football
• Girls’ volleyball
• Soccer
• Boys’ water polo
• Crew (instructional)
• Dance (Ballet, Modern, Hip-Hop; Beg-Adv levels)
• FIT (Fundamentals In Training)
• Gunga FIT ('Extreme' version of FIT)
• Pilates
• Outdoor Pursuits (S&R)
• Squash (instructional)
• Fencing (instructional)
• Skating (instructional)
• SLAM (instructional)
• Swimming (instructional)
• Tennis (instructional)
• Volleyball (instructional)
• Soccer (intramural)
• Yoga
• Zumba

Winter athletic offerings

• Basketball
• Hockey
• Squash
• Swimming and diving
• Indoor track
• Wrestling
• Nordic skiing
• Dance (Ballet, Modern, Hip-Hop; Beg-Adv levels)
• SLAM (Spirit Leaders)
• FIT (Fundamentals In Training)
• Gunga FIT ('Extreme' version of FIT)
• Outdoor Pursuits (S&R)
• Squash (intramural)
• Hockey (intramural)
• Recreational cross-country skiing
• Basketball (intramural)
• Junior Basketball (intramural)
• Indoor cycling (instructional/cycling pre-season)
• Yoga
• Zumba

Spring athletic offerings

• Track
• Baseball
• Softball
• Crew
• Cycling
• Ultimate frisbee
• Golf
• Lacrosse
• Tennis
• Girls’ water polo
• Boys’ volleyball
• Dance (Ballet, Modern, Hip-Hop; Beg-Adv levels)
• Fencing (instructional)
• FIT (Fundamentals In Training)
• Gunga FIT ('Extreme' version of FIT)
• Pilates
• Outdoor Pursuits (S&R)
• Squash (instructional)
• Swimming (instructional)
• Tennis (intramural)
• Yoga
• Ultimate frisbee (intramural)

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 highly selective independent secondary schools.

Secret societies

See also: High school secret societies

Phillips Academy has had a long tradition of secret societies. Almost from the inception of the school, societies existed publicly, with buildings that the students could use as clubhouses. While the societies held secret initiation rituals, their presence was recognized as part of academy life. In the 1940s their existence was widely criticized, even drawing the attention of then Secretary of War Henry Stimson, an Andover and society alum. Objections included racist exclusion, vicious hazing, and the poor academic performance of society members. Bending to public pressure, societies were disbanded in 1949 by Headmaster Kemper.

Although all secret societies were officially terminated in the 1940s, some societies still exist. During the academic year's extended period weeks (weeks during which term examinations take place), a bath tub filled with canned drinks appears on the terrace of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library. An all-boys society called TUB (Truth, Unity, Brotherhood) is responsible for this action.

Alumni

Main article: List of famous Phillips Academy alumni

Andover has educated two American presidents, six Medal of Honor recipients, and many other notable people.

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.

— Tom Wolfe in his book Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine

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, Christina 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 movies and television shows such as the following:

• In Chapter 17 of The Catcher in the Rye, Sally Hayes introduces Holden to a boy who attended Andover. "You'd have thought they'd taken baths in the same bathtub or something when they were little kids. Old buddyroos. It was nauseating. The funny part was, they probably met each other just once, at some phony party. Finally, when they were all done slobbering around, old Sally introduced us. His name was George something—I don't even remember—and he went to Andover. Big, big deal."
• In the John Guare play Six Degrees of Separation, one of the characters laments that his parents could not afford to send him to Andover or Exeter.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise has several characters who attended Andover.
• In Scent of a Woman, Charles Simms tries to start an argument with the irascible Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade by saying that "... I believe President Bush went to Andover."
• In A Beautiful Mind, John Nash's imaginary Princeton roommate characterizes him as a "poor kid that never got to go to Exeter or Andover".

See also

• Abbot Academy
• List of famous Phillips Academy alumni
• List of Phillips Academy Heads of School

External links

• Official website