| Phillips Academy | |
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Non Sibi
(Not for Oneself) Finis Origine Pendet (The End Depends Upon the Beginning) |
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| Location | |
| Andover, Massachusetts, United States | |
| Information | |
| Type | Independent, Boarding |
| Established | 1778 |
| Head of school | Barbara Landis Chase |
| Faculty | 217 |
| Enrollment | 1,102 total 802 boarding 300 day |
| 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 |
| Average SAT scores | 2096 (2008) |
| Website | www.andover.edu |
Phillips Academy (also known as Phillips Andover, Andover, Phillips Academy Andover or PA) is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate (PG) year. The school is located in Andover, Massachusetts, 25 miles north of Boston.
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Phillips Academy is the oldest incorporated academy in the United States,[1] established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr.. Phillips's uncle founded Phillips Exeter Academy three years later, starting a rivalry that has continued through the centuries.[2] Phillips Academy's endowment stood around $787 million in January 2008, the fourth-highest of any American secondary school.[3] Andover is subject to the control of a board of trustees, headed by Oscar Tang, a New York financier and philanthropist. In July 2012, Tang will retire and Peter Currie '74, business executive and former Netscape Chief Financial Officer, will take over as Chairman of the Board of Trustees. On November 14, 2011, 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 in downtown Andover. Abbot Academy, founded in 1829, was the first incorporated school for girls in New England. Then-headmaster Theodore Sizer oversaw the merger, and Phillips Academy's move to coeducation is seen as his most important accomplishment.
Andover traditionally educated its students for Yale (and to a lesser extent, Harvard),[4] but students now matriculate to a wide range of colleges and universities. In recent years, Andover has sent the largest number of its students to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Penn, Columbia, Princeton, and other top-tier colleges and universities in the United States and abroad.[5] Among other notable alumni, Andover has educated two American Presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, NFL Head Coach Bill Belichick, Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, Namesake of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope Lyman Spitzer, six Medal of Honor recipients,[6] inventor Samuel Morse, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. The Phillipian, the school's student-run newspaper, is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the U.S., first published on July 28, 1857. It has published regularly since 1878.[7] Likewise, the Philomathean Society (Phillips Academy) is the oldest high school debate society in the nation, established in 1825.
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. However, most standard-level classes operate using the following score system or a similar derivative:
93-100% = 6; 85-92% = 5; 77-84% = 4; 69-76% = 3; 60-68% = 2; 50-59% = 1; <50% = 0
Andover runs a five week Summer Session program for students entering grades 8–12 that is attended by approximately six hundred students per year.
Phillips Academy was founded during the American Revolution as an all-boys school in 1778 by Samuel Phillips, Jr., a member of the revolutionary war family, the Phillips. The great seal of the school was designed by Paul Revere. George Washington spoke at the school in its first year and was so impressed that he recommended that his nephews go there, which they did. John Hancock, the famous signer of the United States Declaration of Independence, signed the school's articles of incorporation. 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. There is a rivalry between the two schools. The football teams have met nearly every year since 1878, making it one of the oldest high school rivalries in the country.
For 100 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.[8] 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.[9] These buildings later became the heart of the Andover campus, which was expanded in the 1920s and 30s 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.[10] Along with this new construction, at least nine existing buildings were moved to make way for the Vista and the Great Lawn and the creation of a formal West Quad.[10] Small portions of Andover's campus were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park and himself a graduate of the school. Other campus structures include the Memorial Bell Tower, which recently underwent a $5 million renovation,[11] Samuel Phillips Hall, Bulfinch Hall, and Pearson Hall.
Paul Revere incorporated bees, a beehive, and the sun into his design of the school's seal, which is masonic in nature. The school's primary motto, Non Sibi, located in the sun, means "not for oneself". This has led to the development of Non Sibi Day, a day when many of Andover alumni and all of its students participate in community service across the world. 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 was chartered to educate "qualified youth from every quarter."
Phillips Academy offers a broad curriculum and extracurricular activities that include music ensembles, 30 competitive sports, a campus newspaper, a radio station, and a debate club. The academy raised $208 million through "Campaign Andover," which brought its endowment to around $550 million in 2004.[12] In 1973, Phillips Academy merged with neighboring Abbot Academy, which was founded in 1829 as the first school 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. Andrews School) in the United States that attained need-blind admissions in 2007 and 2008, and it has continued this policy through 2010. In 2007, Phillips Academy matriculated 81% of its admitted students, the highest rate among any ESA school. In 2009, it received 2,711 applications and accepted 16.7%, with 77% of those going on to matriculate at the Academy. In 2010, Phillips Academy received a record 2,844 completed applications and accepted 405 students, for a 14.2% admission rate.[13]
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,[15] 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.[15] Stowe is also buried on campus in a cemetery behind Samuel Phillips Hall.[16] 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 WWII, and men instrumental in the founding of the Academy, such as Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. Shortly before his death in 1799, United States President George Washington gave 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.
See full 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 pre-colonial America, and a fine 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.[17] 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.[18]
See full 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."[19] The collection includes materials from the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, Mexico and the Arctic, and range from Paleo Indian (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.
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."[20] The first ever interscholastic football game between high schools was in 1875, when Phillips Academy played against Adams Academy.[21] 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.[22]
Today, Phillips Academy is an athletic powerhouse among New England schools. Since the Constitution of the Phillips Academy Athletic Association was drawn up in 1903 with the objective of "Athletics for All,"[22] Andover has established twenty-nine different interscholastic programs, and forty-four intramural or instructional programs; including fencing, tai-chi, figure skating, and yoga.[23] Andover Athletes have been successful in winning over 110 New England Championships in these different sports over the last three decades alone,[24] and have even had the chance to compete abroad, in such competitions as the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley, England for crew.[25]
The athletic directors of Andover and the other members of the Eight Schools Association compose the Eight Schools Athletic Council, which organizes sports events and tournaments among ESA schools.[26] 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, each team has at least a varsity and junior varsity squad.
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Fall athletic offerings
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Winter athletic offerings
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Spring athletic offerings
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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 1966. There is a seven-school overlap of membership between the two groups.[27] In addition, Andover is a member of the G20 Schools group, an international organization of highly selective independent secondary schools.
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 to this day. 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.[28] A female counterpart, MSAS (Madame Sarah Abbot Society), also remains active.[29]
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