Andover welcomes students to Summer Session 2012
After a quiet few weeks, PA campus springs to life with summer programs ranging from IRT to PALS
June 28, 2012
—Some 670 boys and girls from across the globe descended upon the Phillips Academy campus this week to take part in the Academy’s Summer Session program. Hailing from 40 states and 50 countries, the students will immerse themselves in a supportive community devoted to intellectual curiosity, personal growth and community responsibility.
Summer Session 2012 offers 50 dynamic courses in math, science, English, ESL, world languages and visual and performing arts, as well as history and social science and psychology.
In addition to the class work, students choose from 24 different afternoon activities, including Tai Chi, ultimate Frisbee, soccer, squash, gospel choir and kickboxing. Students also partake in an array of weekend activities, including trips to Boston, outlet malls, amusement parks, Plimouth Plantation, and area museums and beaches.
Students have access to all Academy resources, including the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library and its more than 150,000 volumes, the state-of-the-art Gelb Science Center and its world-class astronomical observatory, and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology, which houses more than 600,000 artifacts.
One of Summer Session’s most popular offerings is its College Counseling program, consisting of a workshop series that brings to campus admission experts from the best colleges throughout the country. These experts engage students in a variety of topics, including financial aid, how to write a college essay and what colleges are looking for. The program also hosts a College Fair featuring nearly 100 college representatives from around the nation, and students have the opportunity to tour many New England colleges, including Harvard, Brown, MIT and Boston College. This year’s fair will be held on campus on Thursday, July 12, in Case Memorial Cage, and will be open to the public from 6 to 8 p.m.
The “global community” concept is key to Summer Session. Of the 668 students expected this year, 625 will live on campus, and 43 will commute from surrounding towns. Of the boarding students, 114 will participate in the (MS)2 program, a challenging three-summer math and science program for economically disadvantaged public school students from across the country.
Outreach programs swing into high gear
A number of other programs 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. This program also includes a student component, bringing to campus more than 50 students from the surrounding communities.
The Institute for Recruitment of Teachers (IRT), founded in 1990 by former Andover dean of faculty and current IRT 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 graduate school and careers in teaching.
In addition, PALS, a joint Phillips Academy and Andover High School community service program, invites academically capable seventh- and eighth-grade students from three Lawrence, Mass., middle schools to the Andover campus—as it has for 24 years—for a month-long program of math, science, reading, writing, vocabulary building and computer technology.