Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy, a residential secondary school, seeks students of intelligence and integrity from diverse cultural, racial, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds.

The school’s residential structure enables faculty to support students in their personal, social, and intellectual development. The academic program fosters excellence in all disciplines within the liberal arts tradition. Faculty members guide students in mastering skills, acquiring knowledge, and thinking critically, creatively and independently. The school strives to help young people achieve their potential not only intellectually, but also artistically, athletically, and morally, so that they may lead responsible and fulfilling lives.

The Academy is committed to establishing a community that encourages people of diverse backgrounds and beliefs to understand and respect one another and to be sensitive to differences of gender, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation. In its programs, the school seeks to promote a balance of leadership, cooperation, and service, together with a deeper awareness of the global community and the natural world.

Andover’s 1778 Constitution charges the Academy to prepare “Youth from every quarter” to understand that “goodness without knowledge is weak…yet knowledge without goodness is dangerous.” This obligation challenges students in mind, body and spirit to see beyond themselves and to go beyond the familiar; to remain committed to developing what is finest in themselves and others, for others and themselves.

This revised version of the Statement of Purpose, voted by the faculty in winter 2000, reaffirms the Academy’s goals set forth in the Constitution of 1778.