Abbot Hall (Phillips Exeter Academy)

Abbot Hall (Phillips Exeter Academy)

Coordinates: 42°58′48″N 70°57′04″W / 42.98000°N 70.95111°W / 42.98000; -70.95111

Phillips Exeter Academy (also known as Exeter, Phillips Exeter, or PEA) is a highly selective, prestigious American private college preparatory school for boarding and day students between the 9th and 12th grade. It is a large co-ed school, with over 1,000 students, and was founded in 1781 by John Phillips, a wealthy American merchant and early patron of schools.

Exeter is located is located in Exeter, New Hampshire, capital of the state during the American Revolutionary War, in the historic New England region, and is one of the oldest secondary schools in the United States. It is a member of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization, founded by ten leading American private preparatory schools in 1956, as well as the global G20 Schools group.

Exeter has a long list of distinguished former students. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, and novelist John Irving are amongst Exeter's notable living alumni. The school has educated generations of the upper-class New England establishment and the American political elite, although the school has made an effort to move away from this reputation and diversify its intake in recent years.

Exeter is particularly noted for its innovation and application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking questions and creating discussions. The Harkness method and table is used in every subject taught at the school, and has been widely replicated in private secondary schools throughout the region.

Phillips Exeter Academy students and alumni are called "Exonians," and faculty and staff often refer to the school as "Exeter" or "PEA." The school has the largest endowment of any New England boarding school, which as of 2011 was valued at $970 million. The Economist has described the school as belonging to "an elite tier of private schools" in Britain and America that counts Eton and Harrow in its ranks. The school's facilities had been described "as luxurious as the nation's top universities" by the New York Times.