Phillips Academy (also known as
Phillips
Andover,
Andover, or
PA)
is a co-educational
independent boarding high
school for boarding and day students in grades 9-12.
The school
is located in Andover
, Massachusetts
, 25 miles north of Boston
.
Description
Phillips Academy is one of the oldest boarding schools in the
United States , 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. Phillips Academy's
endowment stood around $787 million in January 2008, the
fourth-highest of any American secondary school.
Andover is subject to
the control of the board of trustees, headed by Oscar Tang, a New York
financier
and philanthropist.
Andover
traditionally educated its students for Yale
(and to a
lesser extent, Harvard
and Amherst
), 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 Yale, Harvard, Columbia, University of
Pennsylvania
, Stanford
, Princeton University
and other top-tier colleges and universities in the
United
States
and abroad. [26300]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, four
Medal of
Honor recipients , inventor
Samuel
Morse, and author
Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Sr..
The Phillipian, the school's student-run
newspaper, is one of the oldest secondary school newspapers in the
US, first published in 1831. Likewise, the Philomathean Society 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. 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 (ideally) rarely awarded, a five is the lowest honors grade, and
a two is the lowest passing grade. Andover is a member of the
G20 Schools group.
Andover runs a five week Summer Session program for students
entering grades 8-12 that is attended by approximately six hundred
students per year. The program offers academic courses in subjects
such as English, foreign language, science, and history. Students
must also attend afternoon activities such as gospel choir,
badminton, and soccer. Financial aid is available on a limited
basis. Younger students, or those entering the 8th grade, have the
option of taking three classes while older students may take more.
About half of the Summer Session teachers are Andover
faculty.
History
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.
Portions
of Andover's campus were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of
Central
Park
and himself a graduate of the school. It is
dominated by neo-
Georgian
architecture and centered around the several-
acre Great Lawn. Campus structures include the Memorial
Bell Tower, which recently underwent a $5 million renovation,
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. 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.
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. In 2007, Phillips Academy matriculated 81% of its
admitted students, the highest rate among any ESA school . In 2009,
it received its most applications (2,308) and highest selectivity
rate (16.6%), and 79% of admitted students matriculated
there.
Facilities
Academic facilities
Samuel Phillips Hall
- Bulfinch Hall was designed by a student of
architect Charles Bulfinch and
built in 1819. It is now the English Department building.
- The Gelb Science Center, named after wealthy
alumnus Richard 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.
- Morse Hall is home to the Math Department,
student publications, CAMD (Community and Multicultural
Development), WPAA — a student run radio
station, and many of the student run publications, such as The
Phillipian, the student run newspaper, as well as Pot Pourri, the
student run 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) takes its
namesake from the poet Oliver
Wendell Holmes Sr., an 1825 graduate of Phillips Academy. The
library houses 140,000 books, the Phillips Academy Computer Center
(PACC), a video library, and subscriptions to roughly 250
periodicals in print, and access to many thousands of titles
electronically.
- 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, audio, and programs designed to supplement
classroom work in language classes.
- 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 recently announced that
Pearson might turn into a Community Center, but the plan has since
been put on hold due to a strong response from students, faculty,
and alumni.
Student facilities
- 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 the Ryley Room, a grill-style
student hangout, in the basement of Commons. Both Commons and the
Ryley 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 will soon be converted into a
general purpose athletic facility. 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. The
building serves numerous functions, including an administration
building (Head of School's office, among others), a post-office
(the students' mail room), the Day Student lounge and locker area,
and the school's arts complex (containing the Elson Art Center, the
Polk-Lillard Electronic Imaging and Audio-Visual Center, and both
the Tang and Steinbach theaters).
- Graves Hall is the music building, with
classrooms, a concert hall, a record library, and practice
studios.
- The Log Cabin is located in the 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 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.
Museums
Winslow Homer's
Eight Bells,
part of the Addison Gallery's Permanent Collection
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. Construction on the Addison began in the middle of 2008
and is expected to be completed in the spring of 2010. During this
period, the Addison Gallery will be closed to the public.
The Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archeology was
founded in 1901 and is now "one of the nation's major repositories
of Native American archaeological collections."
[26301] 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.
Athletics
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
first edition of
The Phillipian was published.
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”, Andover has established twenty-nine
different interscholastic programs, and forty-four intramural or
instructional programs, including fencing, tai-chi, figure skating,
and yoga.
[26302].
Andover Athletes have been successful in
winning over 110 New England Championships in these different
sports over the last three decades alone [26303], and have even had the chance to compete
abroad, in such competitions as the Henley Royal Regatta in Henley,
England
for crew [26304].As a way to encourage all
students to try new things and stay healthy, all students are
required to have an athletic commitment every 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.
Sports
[26305][26306]
| Fall athletic offerings
|
Winter athletic offerings
|
Spring athletic offerings
|
Accomplishments
| Sport |
Championship year |
| Cross Country-B |
1995, 1996, 1999, 2000, 2006 |
| Cross Country-G |
1992, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 |
| Field Hockey |
1993 |
| Football |
1995, 1997, 1999 |
| Soccer-G |
1993, 1999, 2007, 2009 |
| Soccer-B |
1981, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003,
2004 |
| Volleyball-G |
1993, 2003, 2006 |
| Swimming-G |
1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 |
| Swimming-B |
2007 |
| Basketball-G |
1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2000 |
| Indoor Track-G |
1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994,
1995 |
| Indoor Track-B |
1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995 |
| Baseball |
1995, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2007, 2008 |
| Crew-B |
1989, 2003, 2007, 2009 |
| Crew-G |
1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2000, 2004, 2006 |
| Lacrosse-G |
1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003 |
| Softball |
1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001 |
| Ultimate |
2006 |
| Boys' Volleyball |
2007 |
| Outdoor Track & Field-G |
1994, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2008, 2009 |
| Outdoor Track & Field-B |
1991, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 |
| Water Polo-G |
1997 |
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.
Bending to public pressure, societies were disbanded in 1949 by
Headmaster Kemper.
Although it appears that all secret societies were terminated in
the 1940s, it has been rumored that some societies still exist to
this day. During the final exam period, a tub has been known to
appear on the terrace of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library filled
with cans of soda for the faculty and students. This is believed to
be the secret society T.U.B., and many members of the Phillips
Academy campus believe this organization still exists underground
today.
In popular culture
- In Chapter 17 of The
Catcher in the Rye, Sally Hayes introduces
Holden to a boy who "reeked of
Andover and Yale."
- 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.
- In Eloise, the six
year old's tutor is said to have attended Andover.
- 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's imaginary roommate refers to Andover and
Exeter in a rooftop conversation.
- In Gossip Girl,
they mention a friend who goes to Andover.
- In Cheaper by the Dozen
2, Jimmy Murtaugh said he had two kids at Andover and one
at Exeter.
- In an episode of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air - Will has Carlton
give him a makeover to impress a girl. Carlton tells Will to say he
went to "Andover" and Will retorts, "Bend-over"
- In Gilmore Girls, Logan mentioned
that he spent some time at a boarding school in Andover.
Notable alumni
References
- The Governor's Academy (formerly
Governor Dummer Academy), alma mater of Samuel Phillips,
Jr., was founded in 1763, but was not given a state charter until
after 1778.
- The three secondary schools with higher endowments are:
Phillips
Exeter ($1.0 billion; see [1]), the Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania, and
Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii ($6.8 billion; see[2]).
- The pattern of strongly favoring Yale began in the 1840s and
continued through the 1940s. During those years, when the senior
class numbered around forty, Andover graduates matriculated as
follows: 1858 - 20 to Yale, 10 to Williams; 1863 - 21 to Yale, 8 to
Brown, 5 to Harvard; 1868 - 25 to Yale, 12 to Amherst, 12 to
Harvard. The height of matriculation to Yale was 1937, when one
freshman in ten at Yale was an Andover alumnus. In that year, 74%
of the class matriculated at Yale, Harvard or Princeton. By 1957,
only 47% matriculated at those institutions. Amherst consistently
ranked third after Yale and Harvard for many years in this period,
but declined after the 1940s when the school sought to admit more
public school graduates. In 1950, for the first time in over a
century, more graduates were admitted to Harvard than Yale (64 and
46, respectively)(See Youth From Every Quarter: A Bicentennial
History of Phillips Academy, Andover, by Frederick S. Allis,
Jr. (University Press of New England, 1978)).
- Phillips Academy, Memorial Bell Tower Renovated
- Phillips Academy raises $208.9 Million
- Phillips Academy Andover, New Gelb Science
Center
- Information about America and Stowe
House
- Find-A-Grave Entry on Harriet Beecher Stowe, buried
on Phillips Academy Campus
- Addison Campaign Home
- Addison Campaign News
- Addison Gallery Hompage
- Henry Pearson to Eliphalet Pearson, Andover, 26 October 1805,
in the Pearson Papers, Phillips Academy Archives.
- Quinby, Phillips Academy, Andover on Diamond, Track, and
Field (Andover, Mass.: The Andover Press, 1920), 10.
- Harrison, Fred H., Athletics for All: Physical Education
and Athletics at Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778-1978
(Andover, Ma.: 1983) [3]
- Harrison, Fred H., Athletics for All: Physical Education
and Athletics at Phillips Academy, Andover, 1778-1978
(Andover, Ma.: 1983)
- dates of championship titles were gathered from the gym office
and trophy case of the borden memorial gym, phillips academy,
andover
- "Secret Societies once Clubs, Now Underground." The
Phillipian
See also
External links
Top topics
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
