Phillips Academy
Phillips Academy (also known as PA, Phillips Academy Andover, or simply Andover) is a co-educational college-preparatory school for boarding and day students located in Andover, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. The academy enrolls approximately 1,150 students in grades 9 through 12, including postgraduate students. It is part of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admissions Organization.
Not to be confused with Phillips Exeter Academy.
Phillips Academy
Academia Phillipiana[1]
1778
220030
00603199
Amy Falls
232
1,149 (2022-23)
848
282
7:1
706 acres (3 km2)
- Navy
- White
Gunga, the gorilla
Big Blue
The Phillipian
Pot Pourri
$1.32 billion (June 2023)
$69,600 (boarding)
$53,950 (day)
Founded in 1778, Andover is one of the oldest high schools in the United States. It has educated a long list of notable alumni through its history, including American presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, foreign heads of state, members of Congress, five Nobel laureates and six Medal of Honor recipients.
Andover is highly selective, accepting just 9% of applicants for the 2022–2023 school year. Along with its athletic rival Phillips Exeter Academy, Andover is one of only two co-ed high schools in the United States to both admit students on a need-blind basis and provide financial aid covering 100% of students' demonstrated financial need. 45% of Andover students receive financial aid.
Admissions and student body[edit]
Admission policies[edit]
Phillips Academy is one of the most selective boarding schools in the United States, especially in light of its size. In 2016, four boarding schools had an acceptance rate lower than 15%, and Andover was larger than the other three put together.[68] The acceptance rate normally hovers around 13%,[69][70][71] but during the COVID-19 pandemic, it fell to 9% in 2022.[71]
Andover has practiced need-blind admission since 2007.[72] Andover and Exeter are the only two co-educational prep schools in the United States that both admit students on a need-blind basis and offer financial aid that covers 100% of demonstrated financial need for every admitted student.[73][74][75]
About one of every eight Andover students (12.9%) has a parent who attended Andover, and at least one out of every five Andover students has a sibling who attended Andover.[76]
Location
1780
Multiple
Mid 19th Century Revival, Other, Federal
Town of Andover MRA
October 7, 1982
Extracurriculars[edit]
Phillips Academy's extracurricular activities include music ensembles, a campus newspaper, an Internet radio station (formerly broadcasting as WPAA), and a debate club.
Andover's weekly student newspaper, The Phillipian, claims to have been publishing since 1857.[121] If true, it would be the nation's oldest secondary school newspaper, ahead of Exeter's The Exonian.[122] However, the official school history questioned the 1857 date, noting that no further issues were published until 1878, the same year The Exonian began publishing.[123][124] According to the Phillipian website, the newspaper is "entirely uncensored and student run."[121]
The Philomathean Society is the nation's second-oldest high school debating society, after Exeter's Daniel Webster Debate Society.[125]
Andover students operate the Phillips Academy Poll, the first public opinion poll to be conducted by high school students. In 2022, the poll was featured by Boston Channel 7 News and The New Yorker, among others, after releasing polling results for the 2022 midterm elections.[126][127] The original pollsters graduated in 2023,[128] and the current status of the poll is unknown.[129]
Finances[edit]
Endowment and expenses[edit]
As of June 30, 2023, Phillips Academy's financial endowment was $1.32 billion.[79] In its Internal Revenue Service filings for the 2021–22 school year, the academy reported $110.2 million in program service expenses and $22.9 million in grants (primarily student financial aid).[140]
The academy conducted a "record-setting" fundraising campaign from 2017 to 2023, raising $408.9 million.[141] The campaign added over $103 million to the academy's financial aid endowment and raised $121 million to upgrade health, dormitory, library, music, and athletic facilities.[141]
Tuition and financial aid[edit]
In the 2023–24 school year, Phillips Academy charged boarding students $69,600 and day students $53,950, of which financial aid covers approximately $43,000.[142] The academy has a need-blind admission policy, and 45% of students receive financial aid.[142] The academy also commits to meet 100% of each admitted student's demonstrated financial need, as determined by the academy's financial aid department.[142]
In the twenty-first century, tuition charges at Phillips Academy have significantly increased. In the 2018–19 academic year, Phillips Academy charged boarding students $55,800 and day students $43,300, placing it among the most expensive boarding schools in the world.[143][144]
Controversies[edit]
In 2013, Phillips Academy drew national attention for apparent bias against girls and women, as highlighted by a low number of girls in student leadership.[148]
Reports in 2016 and 2017 identified several former teachers who had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with students in the past. The academy hired an independent law firm to investigate allegations of misconduct, and the head of school, John Palfrey, and the head of the Board of Trustees, Peter Currie, sent an email to the Andover community stating that such transgressions must not recur.[149]
In 2020, an Instagram account, @blackatandover, began circulating stories from anonymous current and former Black-identifying students, many of whom detailed personal experiences with racism at Phillips Academy. Several individuals raised concerns about Phillips Academy's disciplinary system, including perceived racial disparities in outcomes, a perceived emphasis on punishment over restorative justice, and an apparent lack of due process in discipline procedure outlined by the student handbook. The @blackatandover account was reported on by The New York Times, prompting academy officials to form an "Anti-Racism Task Force," which released a final report in March 2022.[150][151][152]
Andover has educated two U.S. presidents (George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush), a Supreme Court justice (William Henry Moody), six Medal of Honor recipients (Civil War: 2; Spanish–American War: 1; World War II: 2; Korean War: 1),[153] five Nobel laureates (making it one of only four secondary schools in the world to have educated five or more Nobel Prize winners), as well as winners of Tony, Grammy, Emmy and Academy Awards. It has educated numerous billionaires, including venture capitalist Tim Draper; private equity pioneer Ted Forstmann; oil heir and environmental philanthropist Ed Bass; and media heir Lachlan Murdoch.
Andover, often in combination with Exeter,[155] is 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.[156] 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.[156] An account in Time in 1931 described the two academies as having "flourished", and that both were "twin giants of prep schools in size and in prestige".[157] Joe Lieberman called them feeder schools for Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Yale.[158] A cultural image from the 1960s was young men who had "perfect white teeth" and wore Lacoste shirts,[159] with a look easy to identify by young women at the time:
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.[156] Still, images of exclusivity based on unfairness tended to remain. Gore Vidal suggested that Andover and Exeter had a "style that was quite witty."[161] 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.[162]
Despite some shifts, the school's image continues to connote exclusivity, prestige, and academic quality. For example, Florida governor Ron DeSantis regularly criticized Andover, Exeter, and Groton in his stump speech during his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.[163]
The academy is often mentioned in books and film, and on television. Some examples include:
