Recently, Niche, a popular school ranking website, released its list of top private boarding schools in the United States. Phillips Academy Andover, after inhabiting first place for a number of years, has dropped to number four, with our rival Phillips Academy Exeter in our previously held first spot. News quickly spread on campus, becoming a hot topic at dining tables and dorm rooms. Despite our drop in ranking, according to the Masthead of The Phillipian, most students felt only a slight indignance to the change.
When students consider the tangible impacts that this updated ranking in their lives, they are quick to realize there is little difference in their Andover experience pre- and post-rank update. As a collection of undefined factors and averages, viewers on the Niche rankings can only expect an estimate of the school experience at best; the students themselves are the best judge of what Andover is to them. However, though the Niche rankings were quickly dismissed within a few days, the fixation the study body had on our statistics in the first place is indicative of a widespread culture of attachments to prestige, and by extension, numerical rankings.
There are various reasons why our student body has a propensity to gravitate toward these types of grades, the two most endemic reasons being our cultural competitiveness and our desire for validation of our hard work. It’s safe to say that most Andover students are the best of the best, the top of their previous schools. Arriving on campus, they bring their ambitious spirits to campus and integrate into our already ambitious student body. More specifically, this student culture that we have cultivated and perpetuated encourages constant comparison to our peers, and, as we compare ourselves to our classmates, a similar dynamic forms between our student body as a whole and our peer schools. When we were on top of Niche’s list, Andover Admissions and numerous other students boasted our number one spot on their social media. In hindsight, and especially with our new ranking, these were all manifestations of our obsession with reputation.
Andover students work hard towards achieving their personal goals. Beyond self-satisfaction, there are few external indicators of the value of efforts. Rankings, like those of Niche, become an accessible source of affirmation they are doing something significant, that the constant stress and exhaustion are not in vain. Especially in a place like Andover where much of the competition is considered to be between students, ranking number one as a school emphasizes our communal efforts towards a common goal of excellence, creating a sense of camaraderie along with achievement.
However, rankings are only useful to those who are yet to join our community. The ranking helps prospective students understand what they might expect from our campus; they give guidance to applicants during their admissions process, acting as just another piece of information they can use in their evaluation. Once they join our community, this breakdown of our school no longer holds precedence to the experience of a student. Their experience is now in their hands and is not dictated by what has data from the past.
As for students already at Andover, Niche rankings are not actually about us. Niche’s evaluation of our school is separate from the work we do in this institution. The website itself gives a considerable amount of weight to self-reported data from Niche users, which, based on the current Philips Academy breakdown on their website, encompasses less than 3 percent of our actual student body––only 29 responses on several of the data points.
Realizing the privileged position our school still sits at, the distinction between one and four is frivolous, a concern few institutions could even have. To disregard the prestige that our school and its name still commands completely ignores the privilege that comes with being part of the generational success Andover boasts about. Ultimately, number four is not number one, but we need to return our attention back to our surroundings and be grateful for all the resources that Andover provides. Regardless of external validation, students should remain focused on their own performance and experience at Andover.
This editorial represents the opinions of The Phillipian, Vol. CXLVI
