The Exonian and The Phillipian Survey Prep Class

In a collaboration called the “Non Sibi Press,” The Exonian and The Phillipian conducted a survey of all incoming preps at Exeter and at Phillips Academy Andover.  The results were posted on the official Non Sibi Press website earlier this week. The survey consists of 36 questions total and is divided into four main categories: general information, middle school, Andover/Exeter and perceptions about each school academically, socially and athletically. The final data are presented on the website on a percentage basis, with helpful graphs that illustrate the specific results from each school.According to The Exonian’s editor-in-chief Philip Kuhn and Chief Digital Editor Brandon Liu, both seniors, The Phillipian came to The Exonian with the idea over the summer. They were inspired by the annual “Freshman Survey” conducted by “The Harvard Crimson” and “The Yale Daily News,” and hoped to try their own hand at gathering data about Andover and Exeter’s respective incoming classes. “The idea was really to compare Andover versus Exeter for different trends in the things we asked,” Kuhn said.

“We wanted to see how similar and how different at least the new students coming into the school were, by numbers.”

Liu agreed, and described his interest in the anthropological study. “We wanted to see how similar and how different at least the new students coming into the school were, by numbers,” he said. “We knew we probably wouldn’t be too surprised by the results, but we thought it would be interesting to see what statistics we could find in the actual survey.”Kuhn and Liu worked closely with The Phillipian’s Executive Digital Editor, Rudd Fawcett, drafting questions for the survey. The Phillipian’s Editor-in-Chief, Juju Lane, provided feedback on these questions, and in the fall, each paper sent out a questionnaire to their respective freshman class. In the spirit of partnership even in the face of Exeter and Andover’s famed rivalry, Liu and Fawcett christened the project the “Non Sibi Press.” “Non Sibi is something that both Exeter and Andover share, and Rudd and I thought it would be fitting to title our joint venture in journalism together after ‘not for oneself,’” Liu said. “I think it reflects our mission as a news publication of serving the greater community well—despite the fact that our schools are ‘rivals.’”Of the 221 freshmen at Andover who received the survey, The Phillipian received 169 complete responses, 76.5 percent of the Class of 2020. Exeter received 157 complete responses out of the 186 preps at Exeter, 84.4 percent of students polled. Fawcett described the survey as a big success, based on his observations at Andover. Many of the freshmen who took the test expressed greater intrigue in the portion of the study that addressed perceptions.“Students seemed to be most interested in the ‘Perceptions’ category on the website, which asked comparative questions about the perceived degrees of social, academic and athletic focus at both schools,” he said.In the “general information” category, the demographics reported by freshmen at the two institutions were nearly identical racially, ethnically and religiously. The majority of respondents at both schools identified as white: 60 percent of the respondents at Exeter and 63 percent at Andover. The majority of students also identified as Caucasian, the most dominant ethnicity at both schools by over 32 percent. In addition, 46 percent of percent of students from each school reported on receiving financial aid of some form  at their respective school. Finally, the 56 percent of boarding freshmen at Andover are relatively local, living in the Northeastern United States. In contrast, at Exeter, only 48 percent of boarding freshmen hail from this part of the country.In compliance with Exeter and Andover’s shared motto, finis origine pendet, or, “the end depends upon the beginning,” the freshmen were asked questions about their middle school experience and how adequately it prepared them for high school. At Exeter, over 60 percent of freshmen attended public school before attending the Academy. At Andover, on the other hand, 57 percent of respondents had attended a private middle school. At Andover, 70 percent of students who felt prepared for high school had attended private middle schools, as opposed to 30 percent who attended public middle schools. At Exeter, there was a weaker correlation between middle school and high school experience: freshmen who attended either public or private middle schools felt equally prepared.For many preps at Exeter, adjusting to the increase in homework and to the Harkness method can be a challenge. Although a heavier workload is expected of a transition to any high school, there is no real way to prepare for Exeter’s Harkness classes. Prep Johanna Martinez said that at her previous public school in New Jersey, students would get referrals or detention if they talked during class while a teacher was speaking. “At my old school it was not good when you talked,” she said. “It’s been a little bit tough for me trying to adjust to Harkness.”In the admissions category, results show that 51 percent of the data pool from Andover applied to Exeter, whereas only 46 percent of Exeter freshmen applied to Andover. 24 percent of Exeter freshmen who applied to Andover were admitted, while 21 percent were placed on the waitlist, compared to 32 percent of Andover freshmen who applied to Exeter and were admitted, with 63 percent waitlisted. The survey also revealed that at Exeter, the revisit days positively impacted students’ decision to attend the Academy.Prep Liuxi Sun of Exeter explained that she applied to Andover and Exeter because she knew they were competitive schools and wanted to compare them before deciding where to attend. She ultimately attended Exeter because she found that during her visits to campus, the staff at Admissions and adults around campus were “very friendly.” She felt that Exeter had a “better environment,” specifically mentioning that when she could not revisit because of an unexpected event, the staff were very understanding. “I just felt that the whole admissions experience was very enjoyable with Exeter,” she said.Prep Emily Gaw agreed. “I think Exeter’s a lot more friendly,” she said. “Everyone says “hi” on paths and you get to know a lot of people.” Although both schools initially ranked at the top of her list, prep Samantha Weil was convinced at Experience Exeter that Exeter was the place for her. “Experience Exeter was the smartest thing I’ve ever done,” she said. “I went and I loved it and I loved my tour guide and the people I met and the whole vibe and everyone there was so passionate and smart and curious.”Of the freshmen who answered the questions, about 34 percent of Exonians and 31 percent of Phillipians had an immediate family member attend their school. The Academics portion of the survey revealed that almost all the freshmen at both schools prioritize academics over everything, including family, social life, athletics, extracurriculars and their faith or religion. The second-highest priority was family, by a 51-percent-wide margin.In the Perceptions section of the survey, freshmen assessed their own school and their rival school based on degrees of perceived  academic-, athletic- and social-orientation. 74 percent of Andover freshmen believed that Exeter students were “very academically-oriented,” whereas only 8 percent thought that Exeter students were “very socially-oriented.” Over 40 percent of Andover freshmen responded that Exeter students were “not very socially-oriented.”  On the other hand, the majority of Exeter freshmen–56 percent–perceived Andover students as only “somewhat academically-oriented.” Contrary to Andover’s perceptions of Exeter, only 11 percent of Exeter freshmen responded that they thought Andover students were “not very socially-oriented.”In response to the drastic disparity between Andover’s perception of Exeter’s academic tendencies versus their social skills, prep Clara Stucke explained that students at the Academy balance academic and social life well on campus.“We definitely care about academics–we are here for school–but everyone is really nice and people help each other with homework all the time,” she said. “Just because people are smart here doesn’t mean that they don’t have a social life.”Kuhn was happy with the execution of the Non Sibi Press project, explaining the journalistic importance of making information available to one’s community. “We want to make information accessible, and our hope is to document the results in the paper for our current students,” he said. “People in the future will see this as a document of what students we’re taking at this time.”Fawcett expressed great interest in collaborating with The Exonian again in the future. Each year, The Phillipian conducts a school-wide “State of the Academy” survey. The Exonian presented a similar survey in 2014, and Fawcett hoped that the board could adapt the annual project for Exeter. Although he only envisioned creating a freshman survey, since other grade specific surveys would have to be tailored towards different demographics, he celebrated the idea of projects such as a joint “Andover/Exeter day online rivalry spread” or live coverage of “A/E.”Both Kuhn and Liu hope to make the Non Sibi Press annual, and to eventually survey seniors as well as freshmen.“Once this is established as an annual thing between Exeter and Andover, it [would be] really interesting to look back from a freshman entrance survey to a senior exit survey,” Liu said. “We’re kind of thinking [of] long term, different projects we could do in the future and what kind of quantitative data we could compare and contrast.”