Andover Summer Upper School

Upper School students choose their own course of study from more than fifty offerings across the humanities, sciences, mathematics, languages and the arts. Most classes run with eight to ten students and are capped at sixteen, so teachers work closely with each student. Study Hours are held every evening from Sunday to Friday and may include evening class sessions, supervised dorm study, reservation-based access to the library, computer centre and language lab, or academic support in the maths, writing and science study centres. Every student, boarding or day, is assigned an advisor for the length of the session. Optional add-ons include Princeton Review SAT and SSAT preparation, Essential Study Skills, College Counselling workshops and music lessons. Students are expected to put in roughly sixty to one hundred and twenty minutes of work a day for each course.

The session runs for five weeks and students are required to attend all of it: those who leave before the official end do not receive grades or teachers comments. Tuition is quoted separately for boarding and for day students, and a student activities fee and a health and safety fee are charged on top for boarding students. Some courses carry an additional course or lab fee for special materials or academic field trips; the school publishes those amounts in its course catalogue. Families living outside the United States are required to buy the health insurance policy provided through Phillips Academy. Course credit is decided by the student home school; end-of-session comments are provided to every student along with a graded or mastery-based assessment.

Boarding students live in dormitories across the Phillips Academy campus. The dormitories range from ten to forty-five students with a house counsellor to student ratio of nine to one, and students are placed in gender-specific houses. Every room is supplied with bed linens, a pillow, a blanket, towels and a fan; rooms are not air-conditioned and students may not bring air conditioners. All dormitories have wireless access and students receive a login and an Andover email address on arrival. Laundry machines are free of charge in most dormitories, and a paid laundry service is available as well. Dormitory placements take account of age, grade, courses and geographic, ethnic and racial diversity, and assignments are given out on arrival. Friends and relatives are not placed in the same room. Day students must live with a parent or guardian within a twenty-mile radius of the campus for the length of the programme.

Students eat in Paresky Commons. Breakfast offers cereal, pastries, eggs, bacon, hash browns and waffles; lunch and dinner are served from a salad bar, grill, Homezone, pizza, pasta bar, hearth and saute stations. Vegan and gluten-free options are available at every meal, and other diets can be accommodated in consultation with the campus nutritionist. Twice a week students are treated to a late-night snack on Flagstaff Quad.

Weekday afternoons are given over to recreation on the campus athletic facilities and fields. Typical offerings include basketball, cardio kickboxing, dance, fitness, outdoor games, power walking, soccer, spinning, squash, swim instruction, tennis, volleyball and yoga; students request their options through the Parent Portal at enrolment and attend one. Weekends bring on-campus events such as dances, laser tag, trivia and dance competitions, and off-campus trips to Boston, Hampton Beach, whale watching and local ice-cream and mini-golf stops. Upper School students may also join weekly visits to colleges and universities around New England.

The campus gives students the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, designated maths, writing and science study centres, a computer centre and language lab, the Makerspace, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology, the Cochran Bird Sanctuary, and extensive athletic facilities and playing fields. The Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center is open for urgent and routine care on weekdays, with a nurse on site at all hours and a physician and counsellor on call while the session is running. Campus Safety officers patrol the grounds at all hours and a blue-light system lets students reach emergency services from points across the campus.

Andover Summer has run since 1942 and brings together more than six hundred students from across the United States and around the world; a recent session drew students from thirty-eight states and forty countries. The residential community is organised on the Academy cluster system: five geographic areas of campus, each with a Cluster Dean and a team of house counsellors who know the students in their cluster and organise its social life. The town of Andover is a five-minute walk from campus, with cafes, shops and places to eat that students use regularly. Students bring a Chromebook or similar laptop, receive an Andover email address and wireless credentials, and sign a community agreement committing to live honestly, safely, responsibly and respectfully.