Summer Session 08 is Launched

July 07, 2008 — A total of 669 students from 34 states and 40 countries are spending a large part of their “school vacation” on the Phillips Academy campus, immersed in a rich variety of summer learning adventures. The vast majority of students—roughly 95 percent—are not academic-year students at Phillips Academy; they are drawn to the school’s special summer offerings that include more than 80 courses taught by a large, creative, and experienced faculty.

Summer Session 2008 officially began on Tuesday, July 1, with 55 new faculty members and dozens of traditional classes in the sciences and arts, math, foreign language, history, religion, journalism, psychology, and philosophy. But many courses exceed standard curriculum offerings, including an archaeology class, “Dig This! Unearthing the American Past” that is excavating a Salem Witch Trial victim’s homestead in Danvers, Mass. Animation, Arabic language, , dance, writing, photography, and introductions to the immune system and introduction and to astronomy, also will be taught, as well as eight different offerings in the English as a Second Language (ESL) category. Two three-week, half-day writing workshops also are being offered this summer to students of high school age. Most students take two courses during the summer, for a combined offering of 12-18 hours of instruction per week.

In addition, students sign up for more than 20 different activities, such as indoor rock climbing, Gospel Choir, dance, ice skating, Tai Chi Ch’uan and fitness, soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, and yoga. Afternoon and weekend trips to Boston theatre performances, North Shore beaches, local colleges, and historic sites in Boston and Salem, Mass., are also offered.

The summer program is open to academically qualified girls and boys who have completed the seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, or 11th grade. Tuition for Summer Session is $6,200 for upper school boarding students and $6400 for lower school. Day student tuition is $4,200 for upper students and $4,400 for lower students. Financial aid is available to qualified students. According to Summer Session Director Paul Murphy, more than $300,000 in financial aid grants has been given to a number of entering Summer Session students this year, supporting Andover’s mission to be a private school with a public purpose.

The (MS)2 program, a competitive three-summer math and science program designed for economically disadvantaged youth from urban areas, accounts for 105 of the students. Founded in 1977 with an initial grant from the Hearst Foundations for students of African, Hispanic, and Native American backgrounds, (MS)2 is fully funded by partnerships between Phillips Academy and several foundations.

Most students will board at the Academy during the five-week session; 51 will commute from surrounding towns. Murphy said applicants cite a variety of reasons for attending the Andover summer program: Some want to take more advanced courses than are offered in their regular academic programs, some want exposure to a boarding school experience and living more independently, some want to meet other students from around the world and experience cross-cultural living, and others want to learn how to manage time in a more challenging environment. “All of them,” he said, “are interested in the enterprise of learning.” Murphy also said that Summer Session aims to satisfy the school’s statement of purpose, to “go beyond the familiar” and so much more.

Some students are especially interested in the college counseling program—individual counseling as well as afternoon workshops that bring experts on the college application and selection process to campus. The program includes visits to college campuses each week. The school also hosts a College Fair on Friday, July 11, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Case Memorial Cage on campus. A former student recently described the workshops as “very informative and helpful in preparing me to face the upcoming college application process.”

A number of special programs and institutes share the Andover campus during the summer. Among these are the Andover Bread Loaf Writing Workshop for domestic urban public school and international teachers, founded in 1987 with the Middlebury College Graduate School of English. The Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT)—founded in 1990 by former Andover Dean of Faculty and current Executive Director Kelly Wise—identifies college students and graduates from diverse backgrounds who are committed to eradicating racial disparities at all levels of education and helps prepare them for careers in teaching and for graduate school.

In addition, PALS, a Phillips Academy community service program for academically capable seventh- and eighth-grade students from three Lawrence, Mass., middle schools, invites these students to the Andover campus—as it has for 20 years—for a monthlong program of math, science, reading, writing, vocabulary building, and computer applications. Plus, the Andover Soccer Camp, in its 32nd year, will host more than 700 children ages 5 to 18, in five weeklong sessions grouped according to skill levels.

More information on all programs may be found on the school’s Web site, www.andover.edu.