School Year Abroad
School Year Abroad | 439 South Union St. | Lawrence, MA 01843
http://www.sya.org

School Year Abroad offers to qualified uppers and seniors a full academic year of living and studying in China, France, Italy, or Spain. Applicants for France and Spain must be in their second year of study of French or Spanish. The program in China is open to beginners in the language. The program in Italy, a Classics focused program, is also open to beginners in the study of Latin. Students live with host families, participate in the activities of local athletic and social clubs and pursue a course of study (both in English and in Chinese, French, Italian, or Spanish) under the supervision of sponsoring school teachers. SYA offers over two weeks of group travel and all College Boards and provides full academic credit, permitting students to graduate from Phillips Academy with their own class. School Year Abroad is legally and financially independent of its sponsoring schools. Financial aid is available. Please write or Email for more information.

Summer Opportunities

Summer Opportunities   Travel, adventure and learning in the United States or abroad. Jobs are mostly local.

Interim Year    A year after high school graduation and before college to recharge while participating to alternatives to mainstream education.

Summer Immersion Programs Abroad

A three-year pilot program to provide need-based financial aid for summer language study in Less Commonly Taught Languages (German, Japanese, Russian)

Research has shown that proficiency levels at the end of college are dramatically tied to high school language experience. Thanks to a grant from the Abbot Association, Phillips Academy has instituted a scholarship fund to support 4-6 week summer immersion programs for 20-25 students per summer. Ideally, all students enrolled in a foreign language class should have the opportunity to participate in an immersion program of some sort before the end of secondary school, while they are still young enough to acquire the phonetic and grammatical systems of the language most authentically. The Less Commonly Taught Languages—German, Japanese and Russian—normally demand not just one but two or more extended stays in-country to reach the so-called "advanced" level of proficiency. Furthermore, these languages are, for the most part, ones for which there is a critical need for expertise both for national security and for long-term economic reasons.