We recently named Phillips Exeter Academy the most elite boarding school in America— for the second year in a row.
Phillips Exeter is highly selective and has educated some of the most powerful people in history. Its alumni base includes 19 state governors, five US senators, five Olympic athletes, two Nobel Prize winners, a US President, and even tech moguls like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo.
Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.15 billion — more than any other boarding school and larger than many colleges as well.
The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs $47,790 a year for boarding students.
When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, New Hampshire opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living." More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.
In the fall of 2014, I spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, located in Exeter, New Hampshire, to see what makes it so unique.
Additional reporting by Emmie Martin.
SEE ALSO: The 50 most elite boarding schools in America
Phillips Exeter Academy, which we recently named the most elite boarding school in America, has a reputation as a "feeder school"— a school that sends a high number of students to Ivy League universities. As I drove to the quiet town of Exeter, New Hampshire, I expected to hate it.
Before arriving on campus, I imagined the quintessential boarding-school stereotype — Vineyard Vines-wearing, silver-spoon-fed teenagers crumbling under academic pressure, bragging about their college acceptances, and sneaking off into the woods to get high.
But I spent the day as a student in "the bubble," as students call the Exeter community, and it was nothing like I expected. I never wanted to leave.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider