PEA Founds Its Own College
According to highly placed sources, the Board of Trustees will announce next week the most radical initiative in PEA’s history: the Academy will start its own undergraduate program beginning in the fall of 2022 to be called Phillips Exeter University (PE-U).
“Yes, these are big plans,” admitted a trustee, “but they’re the only solution to a ginormous problem.”
The secret initiative is in response to the challenges that the current college landscape presents. “We just can’t seem to get them in anywhere,” a college counselor complained. “The conventional institutions of higher learning in this day and age don’t seem to understand the specialness of PEA’s academic program and student accomplishments.” Repeatedly, the CCO found that colleges were dismissing its attempts to describe Exonians’ specialness. “We tell them that a “C” in Latin at Exeter is really the same as an “A” from any other high school, that Exeter students don’t have APs, because all of their classes are at the college level, and, while it’s true that none of them have read “Jane Eyre” or “Moby Dick,” every one of them can write a whipsmart 26-page exploration of a social slight suffered in 7th grade, but these admissions offices just don’t understand,” the counselor lamented.
The problem came to a head this winter when the University of North Portsmouth informed the CCO that it would be radically curtailing the number of PEA students it could admit. “Yes, the Academy students we accepted were mostly in the top half of our class when it came to academic accomplishments,” a UNP representative said, “but they’re draining the Student Activities Budget with all the weird clubs they want to start, they’re always complaining about the food, and our professors keep telling us that they talk too much.”
In an emergency trustee meeting last spring, a visionary solution emerged: PEA would found its own college, so that its students would have somewhere to go. “This will be a place where the specialness of the Exeter student will finally be appreciated,” a trustee promised. “The continuation of the Harkness method will allow them to go on expatiating and speculating without being stifled by pesky facts and chronologies. We’ll also offer a Classics Recovery Program.”
In fact, the curriculum for the freshman and sophomore years will be devoted to helping students recover from the academic trauma that was their PEA experience. As an anonymous dean, who will be promoted to the new institution explained: “We envision a lot of hot chocolate and stuffed animals. The specialness of PEA students has to be repaired and nurtured.”
Athletic coaches are excited about the prospect of a special PG program at the new school. They’ll be looking at… “Yes, we already have feelers out to the basketball, football and baseball programs and we’ll definitely be able to get some Johns Hopkins lacrosse graduates.” A spokesman from the athletic program was particularly enthusiastic about NFL rejects. Plus, the new athletic department is deep in negotiations with the (Prep School Athletic Conference) to insure that the college can still play its traditional rivals. “After all, Phillips Exeter will still be part of our name, why shouldn’t we play Deerfield? This arrangement will finally acknowledge the specialness of our scholar/athletes and could well mean that our teams may even have more wins than losses,” an athletic department spokesman said.
These heady plans hit a snag this winter when a CCO survey of law, business and medical schools revealed that those institutions were unlikely to accept the graduates of PE-U. As a CCO staff member revealed, “Professional schools admissions committees turn out to be just as blind to the specialness of anticipated PE-U graduates, as their undergraduate counterparts are to the specialness of current PEA students.” In an emergency meeting, the trustees arrived at yet another bold and innovative solution. The Academy will establish its own law, business and medical schools.
Plans were fully underway for the university and professional schools and, in fact, PEA has been quietly buying up property in the surrounding community and the few remaining lots it doesn’t already own in downtown Exeter, when the plans hit a further and seemingly insurmountable obstacle: Trustees had informally surveyed their friends and colleagues and realized that law firms, hospitals and corporations were unlikely to hire the graduates of the Phillips Exeter professional schools. As one trustee complained, “My law partners just don’t understand the PEA education. Sure, Exeter’s lawyers, doctors and business people might not be competent in conventional ways, but that’s because they’re too special.” This problem was resolved in one magnificent stroke: PEA will soon be establishing its own law firm and hospital, plus a movie studio in Newington. “Our humanities and theater kids are going to need high-powered jobs, as well,” explained a trustee.
While trustees are excited about making these plans public, there’s one potential dark cloud on the horizon. “Well, you see,” a trustee explained, “I have a sense that we might be headed for malpractice suits and I’m not sure that our lawyers will be able to mount successful defenses. We’re going to be looking at establishing a special justice system. We think the Model UN, Debate Club and Mock Trial kids could be really helpful with this.”