Phillips Academy
preparatory school in Andover, Massachusetts, United States
Phillips Academy, also known as Andover, is a private, co-educational, boarding-and-day, college-preparatory school located in Andover, Massachusetts, near Boston. It is the oldest incorporated academy in the United States, having been founded in 1778. The school enrolls approximately 1,150 students in grades 9 through 12, including postgraduate students. It is part of the Eight Schools Association and the Ten Schools Admission Organization.
Notable alumni include American presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, several members of the Washington family and Kennedy family, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., Josiah Quincy III, Philip K. Wrigley, A. Bartlett Giamatti, Benjamin Spock, Frank Stella, Bill Belichick, foreign heads of state, members of Congress, five Nobel laureates and six Medal of Honor recipients, and artists, athletes, and businesspersons.
Phillips Academy admits students on a need-blind basis and provides financial aid covering 100% of students' demonstrated financial need. 47% of Andover students receive financial aid, and 12% are on full scholarship.
History
Revolutionary-era beginnings
Phillips Academy was established by Samuel Phillips Jr., a local businessman who hoped to educate Calvinist students for the ministry.
The American Revolutionary War had caused significant upheaval to education in New England, and Phillips Academy filled part of that gap. (For example, Boston Latin School shut down during the war because its headmaster John Lovell, a Loyalist, fled to British Canada after the fall of Boston in 1776.) The founders of Phillips Academy were strongly associated with the Patriot cause.
The public source identifies “Phillips Academy” as preparatory school in Andover, Massachusetts, United States. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Phillips, Academy and preparatory.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1432645. VIAF identifies the subject as 129646671. The Library of Congress control number is n79058957. Authority coordinates are 42.647, -71.131. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1778 and 1776.
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This entry incorporates text from “Phillips Academy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.