From a STEM Student: Course Selections at Exeter

By Catherine Wu ’24

Waiting for the admissions lady to finish speaking with my mother during my interview were the longest minutes of my life. During those twenty-something minutes, I got up and drank three cups of water from the small dispenser, made an effort to greet the two other students also waiting for their interview, and even made a trip to the restroom to check myself out. Then, I finally noticed the Courses of Instructions booklets on the sofa tables. I picked one up from the large stack, curious to see what the booklet had to offer. As an eager eighth-grader longing to attend boarding school, I flipped through the pages to pass time, enthralled by all of the intriguing classes offered:

BIO485: Marine Biology

BIO586: Molecular Genetics

CHE455: Building the Modern World: Chemistry of Smart Materials and Devices

PHY640: Quantum Mechanics

I was in awe as I read about these sophisticated courses, especially since my local high school only had maybe one-third of the number of courses offered here. But when I browsed that same booklet during our one-week add-drop period, I felt as if I’d hit a roadblock. The realization that students are only allowed to take five academic classes per term breaks me.

For most lowers, this translates to English, Math, Language, Science, and elective. Yet regarding this elective, a majority of us take a 300s history, a religion course, an arts elective, or a computer science credit. Yet as a STEM student, many of the Academy’s course and graduation requirements provide difficulty when selecting courses of interest.

Math placement is a hassle for students who planned out our math journeys early on. Many students took Algebra and Geometry in their middle school years, only to be placed in a “Transition 2 Mathematics” course because of vectors during the placement test. Furthermore, the vague course titles such as “Integrated Mathematics,” “Introduction to Calculus,” and “Calculus - Enriched,” are challenging for new students to navigate since the topics covered are often unspecified. And students who should have already finished Calculus BC by the tenth grade, instead have to go through the Exeter curriculum term by term and relearning concepts. In hopes of acceleration, they are left to fight the Academy’s math department, communicating with administrators in hopes of acceleration, without success because of one placement test and the rigidity in the Academy’s policies to accelerate mathematics.

Regarding sciences, it is challenging to examine the entire course catalog, planning out courses and electives for our four years at Exeter. It is a hassle knowing that we need to fit in a 200s, 300s, and another history requirement somewhere during our prep, lower, and senior years, taking away space from a year-long science course. It annoys me to be unable to drop language classes, like so many other students do after one term or one year, as language is another three-term course that counts as an elective. And for those who take one science prep and lower year respectively, we face a dilemma when working to figure out where to take Death Chem, the genetics sequence, and AP biology, when we simply don’t have space in our schedules.

But aside from the standard year-long biology, chemistry, and physics courses including introductory and AP courses, our Academy stands out in our electives in the science curriculum. We have 13 biology electives, 3 chemistry electives, 8 physics electives, as well as an Earth and Planetary Science elective, and the BIO/CHE/PHY590 select topics elective. These electives all go in-depth in very specific areas of science, and some of them are courses that are not offered at any other schools anywhere else in the country. These courses are taught by faculty at the Academy with extensive knowledge in the sciences, and many of our science instructors have master’s and bachelor’s degrees from prestigious universities around the world. As students at the Academy, we gain comprehensive knowledge in these fields by learning from these teachers, and I truly admire our science department’s range of courses offered to its students.

However, we just don’t have space in our schedules to fit any of these electives until upper year. Yet upper year also includes English, Math, Language, US History, leaving us with only one open format for an elective. Further, if we decide to take a “standard” year-long introductory or AP course, we virtually have no way of taking these science electives, perhaps until senior year, when many of us would much rather take an introductory ceramics course on top of college applications as opposed to a 500s biology elective.

Overall, I think the Academy has a wonderful array of courses and electives offered to its students. Students across the country who attend public schools wouldn’t even dream of taking some of them until college. For so many prospective students, Exeter’s extensive offerings and incredible faculty drew many of us to the Academy in the first place.

However, after attending the Academy for nearly 17 months now, I’ve come to realize that there is no way for any student to possibly take all of the courses they may be interested in from the course catalog. We are shouldered with too many classes to fulfill our diploma requirement for us to graduate, and too many advanced classes and AP courses to take for college sake, with only five alloted classes per term.

In all, I hope that Phillips Exeter Academy could realize how unreasonable it is to allow its students only five courses per term. The Academy could loosen diploma requirements, so students have more freedom in selecting classes of actual interest to them instead of worrying about fulfilling a graduation credit. Or, perhaps revising the wording regarding class prerequisites and grade requirements written in the course catalog, and making it well known to students that these all can be easily overridden by an email to the department head if needed. Lastly, I would suggest making add-drop a longer period of time and announcing sooner notice, so (especially new) students can more thoroughly consider courses they would like to change and have more time to discuss with peers or advisors.

Looking back at the courses I noted down that day in the Admission office, with their fascinating course titles and descriptions, there are, unfortunately, barely any that I will be able to take and still successfully graduate with the Academy’s numerous diploma requirements.