Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is the oldest incorporated academy in the United States,[12] established in 1778 by Samuel Phillips Jr. His uncle, Dr. John Phillips, later founded Phillips Exeter Academy in 1781. Phillips Academy's endowment stood at just over one billion dollars as of February 2016.[13] Andover is subject to the control of a board of trustees.[14][15] Raynard S. Kington has been the Head of School since 2019.[16]

Phillips Academy admitted only boys until 1973, when it merged with Abbot Academy, a boarding school for girls also in Andover. Abbot Academy, founded in 1828,[11] was one of the first incorporated schools for girls in New England.

Andover traditionally educated its students for later studies at Yale University.[17]

The school's student-run newspaper, The Phillipian,[18] is the oldest secondary school newspaper in the United States: The Exonian, Phillips Exeter Academy's weekly, is older.[19] 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. Students comprise the editorial board and make all decisions for the paper, consulting with two faculty advisors at their own discretion.[20] The Philomathean Society is one of the oldest high school debate societies in the nation, second to the Daniel Webster Debate Society at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Phillips Academy also runs a five-week summer session for approximately 600 students entering grades 8 through 12.[21]

Student body, Phillips Andover, 1910

Phillips Academy's traditional rival is Phillips Exeter Academy, which was established three years later in Exeter, New Hampshire, by Samuel Phillips' uncle, John Phillips. The rivalry persists. The football teams have met nearly every year since 1878, making it the oldest prep school rivalry in the country.[22]

A view of Samuel Phillips Hall

Several figures from the revolutionary period are associated with the school. George Washington visited the school during his presidency in 1789,[23] and Washington's nephews later attended the school. John Hancock signed the school's articles of incorporation and 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 seminary was independent of 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.[24] 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.[25] Small portions of Andover's campus were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park and himself a graduate of the school.[26]

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.[27]

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.[28]

During the 1930s the school was involved in the International Schoolboy Fellowship, a cultural exchange program between US academies, British public schools and Nazi boarding schools.[29]

Andover Battalion cadets training at the school, 1918

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.[30] After existing at Phillips Academy almost since its inception, secret societies were officially disbanded in 1949. One secret society continues to exist.[31][32][33]

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.[34] In 2013 it received 3,029 applications and accepted 13%, a record low acceptance rate for the school. Of those accepted, 79% went on to matriculate at the academy.[35]

Phillips Academy follows a trimester program, where a school year is divided into three terms, with each term lasting approximately 10 weeks.[36] Many courses are year-long, while others last only one to two terms.[37] 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.[38]

In 1952, Andover, Exeter, Lawrenceville, Harvard, Princeton and Yale published the study General Education in School and College: A Committee Report. The report recommended examinations that would place students after admission to college. This program evolved into the Advanced Placement Program.[39][40]

For the 239 members of the class of 2018, average SAT scores were 720 on the English section and 740 on the Math section.[41]

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

The Addison Gallery of American Art is an art museum given to the school by alumnus Thomas Cochran in memory of his friend Keturah Addison Cobb.[53] 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.[54] 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.[55]

The Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology was founded in 1901 and is now "one of the nation's major repositories of Native American archaeological collections".[56] 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. Still, it is accessible to researchers, public schools, and visitors by appointment.

Central campus at Andover

For the 2020–2021 school year, the Andover student body included students from 44 states/territories and 51 countries.[65] Self reported students of color comprise 41.9% of the student body (Asian 40.1%, Black 10.4%, Hispanic/Latino 9.4%, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander 1.2%, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas 2.3%). Self reported legacy students (defined as students that "have at least one immediate family member who is currently attending or has previously attended Andover.") account for 33.2% of the students.[66]

73.7 percent of Andover students live on campus in dorms or houses while day students from the surrounding communities make up the remaining 26.3 percent of the student body.[66]

The Phillipians boast a diverse political landscape, in the 2021 State of the Academy 36.1% identified as liberal, 13.2% as independent, 11.3% as conservative, 4.0% as communist, 3.2% as libertarian, 3.2% as socialist, 1.6% did not identify with the above, leaving 21.8% who were unsure as to their political affiliation.[66]

For the 2021–2022 academic year, Phillips Academy charged boarding students $61,950 and day students $48,020.[78] In the 2018–2019 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.[79][80] Tuition has increased at a rate of 3.76% per year over the last decade.[78] Phillips Academy offers need-blind admission.[81] In the 2021–2022 academic year, 100% of demonstrated financial need was met with 47% of students receiving some form of financial aid and 15% of students receiving full scholarships. Returning students receive an average grant of $40,800.

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 EtSA 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.[84] In addition, Andover is a member of the G20 Schools group, an international organization of independent secondary schools.

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.[85]

Reports in 2016 and 2017 identified several former teachers in the past who had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with students. The school 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 school community that such transgressions must not recur.[86]

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 anonymous 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 school officials to form an "Anti-Racism Task Force," which released a final report in March 2022.[87][88][89]

• 
  President George H. W. Bush
• 
  President George W. Bush
• 
  Josiah Quincy III
• 
  Edgar Rice Burroughs
• 
  Jessica Livingston
• 
  Oliver Wendell Holmes
• 
  Frederick Law Olmsted
• 
  Humphrey Bogart
• 
  Jack Lemmon
• 
  Bill Belichick
• 
  Lachlan Murdoch

Andover has educated two American 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),[10] 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. Numerous graduates have become billionaires, including Tim Draper, venture capitalist; Ed Bass, philanthropist and environmentalist; Theodore J. Forstmann, founder of Forstmann Little & Company and IMG; and Lachlan Murdoch, CEO of the Fox Corporation.

Other notable alumni include Edgar Rice Burroughs, author known for creating Tarzan of the Apes and John Carter of Mars; Bill Belichick, coach for the New England Patriots and recipient of eight Super Bowl rings; Humphrey Bogart, an Academy Award-winning actor considered to be one of the greatest stars of American cinema; Jack Lemmon, actor and recipient of two Academy Awards; Olivia Wilde, actress; Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., writer, polymath, and member of the Fireside poets; Francis Cabot Lowell, instrumental figure in the American Industrial Revolution and namesake of Lowell, Massachusetts; Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook; David Graeber, anthropologist and activist; Frederick Law Olmsted, landscape architect known for designing Central Park and the Emerald Necklace; John F. Kennedy Jr., lawyer, journalist, and son of President John F. Kennedy; and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, an early feminist and social reformer; Jonathan Alter, journalist for Newsweek and bestselling author; Carl Andre, minimalist artist; Julia Alvarez, writer, poet and National Medal of Arts recipient; Willow Bay, journalist for the Huffington Post; John Berman, anchor for CNN; Michael Beschloss, historian; Buzz Bissinger, journalist and author of Friday Night Lights; Richard H. Brodhead, president of Duke University; Norman Cahners, publisher; Joseph Cornell, influential avant-garde artist and filmmaker; Peter Currie, CFO of Netscape; Stephen Carlton Clark, founder of the Baseball Hall of Fame; George Church, geneticist; Lucy Danziger, editor-in-chief of Self; John Darnton, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times; Dana Delany, Emmy Award-winning actress; Jonathan Dee, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist; Bill Drayton, social entrepreneur; Walker Evans, photojournalist; Charles L. Flint, co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst; A. Bartlett Giamatti, president of Yale University; Richard Theodore Greener, first African-American graduate of Harvard; Peter Halley, postmodernist painter and essayist central to the development of Neogeo (art) in 1980s New York; Walter Boardman Kerr, WWII correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and author; Victor Kiam, owner of the New England Patriots and entrepreneur; William Damon, noted psychologist and educator; Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning literary journalist; Karl Kirchwey, poet; Heather Mac Donald, conservative political commentator; Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly; Robert B. Stearns, co-founder of Bear Stearns; Benjamin Spock, pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care is one of the best-selling volumes in history; Bill Veeck, owner of the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Indians; Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, King of Bhutan; Philip K. Wrigley, chewing gum manufacturer; and Theodore Dwight Weld, prominent abolitionist.

Alumni also includes numerous politicians and government officials, including as Katie Porter, U.S. Representative for California's 45th congressional district; Christopher Wray, the 8th Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Seth Moulton, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 6th congressional district and 2020 presidential candidate; Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida, 2016 presidential candidate, and member of the Bush family; Patrick J. Kennedy, U.S. Representative for Rhode Island's 1st congressional district and member of the Kennedy family; William King, first Governor of Maine and prominent proponent for Maine's statehood; Josiah Quincy III, a U.S. Representative, Mayor of Boston, President of Harvard University, and namesake of Quincy Market; Joseph Carter Abbott, U.S. Senator from South Carolina and colonel in the Civil War; Henry L. Stimson, U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of War; Vance C. McCormick, Chair of the DNC and of the American delegation at the Treaty of Versailles; Sullivan Ballou, Union Civil War officer remembered for a letter written to his wife before he was killed at the Battle of Bull Run; James Bell, U.S. Senator from New Hampshire; Hiram Bingham III, Governor of Connecticut and U.S. Senator who rediscovered Machu Picchu; David B. Birney, Union General during the Civil War; Harlan Cleveland, U.S. Ambassador to NATO; Raymond C. Clevenger, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Lincoln Chafee, U.S. Senator and Governor of Rhode Island; Johnson N. Camden Jr., U.S. Senator from Kentucky; Thomas C. Foley, U.S. Ambassador to Ireland; Scooter Libby, political advisor during the Bush administration; Charles Ruff, White House Council to Bill Clinton; William R. Timken, U.S. Ambassador to Germany; and Alexander Trowbridge, U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

Andover, often linked with Exeter,[90] 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.[91] 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.[91] 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".[92] essentially feeder schools for Ivy League universities such as Harvard and Yale, according to Joseph Lieberman.[93] A cultural image from the 1960s was young men who had "perfect white teeth" and wore Lacoste shirts,[94] 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[95]

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.[91] Still, images of exclusivity based on unfairness tended to remain. Gore Vidal suggested that Andover and Exeter had a "style that was quite witty."[96] 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.[97] Recent reports from graduates, however, paint a picture of educational excellence and diversification. For example, Cristina Hartmann, who attended Andover from 2001 to 2003, described the school as having a need blind admissions policy.[98] 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".[98] She elaborated that Andover provided two sign language interpreters, free of charge, to help her academically to cope with her deafness.[98] 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, clubbiness, or arrogance.

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

• In Chapter 17 of The Catcher in the Rye, Sally Hayes introduces Holden to a boy who attended Andover.[99] "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.[100]
• F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise has several characters who attended Andover.[101]

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

• Massachusetts Board of Education; George A. Walton (chapter) (1877), "Appendix E: Report on Academies: Phillips Academy [section]", Annual Report...1875–76, Boston – via Internet Archive{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Paul Monroe, ed. (1913), "Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass.", Cyclopedia of Education, vol. 4, New York: Macmillan, hdl:2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t1vd73q7n – via HathiTrust

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Phillips Academy Andover.

Wikisource has the text of the 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article Phillips (Andover) Academy.

• Official website
• Phillips Academy Andover on Twitter
• Phillips Academy Andover on Instagram, archived from the original