The Exeter System, described in the 1880's as one involving "student participation to the point of bedlam," was stabilized in the 1930's with the introduction of the Harkness Plan. Each student plays an important role in every class meeting.

Students of all racial, religious and social backgrounds from more than thirty countries and forty states attend summer school. Most of the instructors are regular Phillips Exeter faculty members.

Location
The 400-acre campus is located in Exeter in the heart of New Hampshire's seacoast area. Boston and the White Mountains are within easy access for summer excursions.

Programs
Summer school students select three courses from a variety of options. Course options in the English Department include various writing courses as well as Shakespeare, Worlds of Fantasy, Journalism, Great Books-Great Reading, and Old Testament Mythology. History and social studies courses in clude American Foreign Policy, Modern Europe, Basic Principles of Criminal Justice, Economics and Business, and Leadership and Society. The Humanities Department offerings include the Art of Being Human, Media and Society, Research and Term Papers, and Understanding Arguments. Nine foreign languages are taught by native or near-native speakers. The Mathematics Department offers courses focusing on problem solving skills and utilized technology as part of the process. The Music and Performing Arts Departments are heavily enrolled each summer, as are the Psychology and Science Departments. The Science Department offers courses in Astrophysics, Astronomy, Marine Biology, Sports Science, Physics, Biology, Sports Science, Physics, Biology, Chemistry,and Electronics among others.

In addition to the academic program, a broad physical education program is part of the student's Exeter experience. For two sessions students are encouraged to try a new physical activity taught by the professional physical education staff. Traditional offerings include tennis, soccer, softball, basketball, and track and field, but lacrosse, weight training, aerobics, and water polo are also taught.

Optional recreational excursions include a hike in the White Mountains, tour of New England college and whale watching among others.

Extraciricular activities include theater music and sports. In addition to formal courses in acting, the Fisher Theater offers a variety of activities in such aspects as lighting, costume and set construction. All students may try out for the major production performed during the last week of Summer School.

Facilities
The campus centerpiece is the library which houses one of the academy's six computer labs and seats over four-hundred students.

Love Gymnasium includes two ice rinks, five basketball floors, two pools, fifteen squash courts, dance room and weight room.

Outdoor facilities include baseball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, an all-weather track and a cross-country course through a nature preserve. The main campus buildings and dormitories are clustered around quadrangles in close proximity to each other.

The Academy Building houses classrooms for computer science, mathematics, history and social sciences, and psychology as well as the Anthropology Museum, and the Assembly Hall. English and modern language classes meet in Phillips Hall which is also the home of the Summer School Office. The Thompson Science Building has well-equipped laboratories for all sciences, an open lab for individual projects and independent work, and its own library and auditorium.

The Phillips Exeter Academy Grainger Observatory is a state of the art facility for astronomical research. The facility includes three domed observatories, a heated classroom building with library and numerous additional instruments to assist students with their research.

The Forrestal-Bowld Music Center is a state-of-the-art facility with almost 24,000 square feet of space dedicated to the study of music. Besides three large rehearsal rooms, there are 11 teacher studios, eight of them equipped with grand pianos, and 16 practice rooms with upright pianos. The music center is open throughout the day for individual and group rehearsals.

The Fisher Theater contains two stages fully equipped with computerized lighting, a scene shop, classrooms, and dressing rooms for costume change and make-up. The Frederick R. Mayer Art Center provides studios for work in sculpture, architecture, painting, drawing, ceramics, and photography as well as a machine shop, art history classrooms, and an eighty-seat auditorium for movies and lectures. In addition, the Center houses the Lamont Gallery, used each summer to display the splendid works of our student artists.

Costs
Boarding tuition for Summer School, from July 9 through August 12 is $5,450. The deadline for financial aid application is March 1. Admission is competitive and many courses fill up rapidly so it is in the candidates best interest to complete the application as early as possible.

Contact:
Richard "Hobart" Hardej, Director
Phillips Exeter Summer School
20 Main Street
Exeter, NH 03833-2460

(603) 777-3488
(800) 828-4325 Ext. 3488
Fax (603) 777-4385
email: summer@exeter.edu
http://www.exeter.edu/summer/