The recently published 2026 State of the Academy (SOTA) survey was delayed twice, due to the lack of participation from the student body. It could have been that the link to the SOTA had gotten lost in some students’ inbox. It is also true that the SOTA survey requires some level of dedication, as it often asks an extensive list of questions, taking around fifteen to twenty minutes to fill out. Regardless of whether the barrier was the time commitment or a simple forgetfulness, the choice to opt out matters more than it seems. At Andover, where self-advocacy is a core value, skipping SOTA is not just to avoid a survey; it is to pass up one of the few opportunities students have to shape their upcoming years by making their experience visible.
The SOTA is an optional and anonymous survey meant to give a realistic view into the student life at Andover. Several aspects about this survey make it an important opportunity. As a student, there’s not many ways to reflect personal opinions or experiences into Andover’s operation. However, the SOTA gives students an opportunity to turn their daily experiences into data that guides the school’s trajectory and influences its policies. Led by The Phillipian, the survey remains independent from administrative interference, serving a purpose to encourage utmost honesty, even on the more sensitive topics, mitigating the pressure to give “ideal” answers. In cumulation, the SOTA becomes a way for uniting thousands of distinct, personal experiences into a collective perspective that cannot be easily ignored.
Beyond its role as a source of data, the SOTA is a direct venue for self-advocacy. Self-advocacy, as one of Andover’s most important qualities, is often framed as speaking up in visible or immediate situations, but it can also take different forms. By taking the time to reflect on and share their experiences through the SOTA, students are actively representing their needs, concerns, and perspectives. For example, if a vast majority of students answer on the survey that grading disparity is severe in certain subjects, the institution can reflect on this student response and look to solve this issue. Completing the survey is an intentional choice that contributes to how the institution understands and responds to its students. Especially in a large community where individual voices can feel negligible, the SOTA offers a structured way for those wandering voices to be recognized and shape a larger system. As such, choosing not to complete SOTA also means giving up an opportunity to influence how the school reflects on and responds to student life.
Because students may not always be able to see how or where the collected data from SOTA is ultimately used, the survey can feel disconnected from immediate outcomes, making participation seem less urgent. However, without physical data like the SOTA, the amount of records of student experiences that the administration can draw from shrinks. In that absence, even widespread issues that students or administrators feel uncomfortable mentioning risk remaining unseen because there is no way for them to be communicated.
This is why we must rethink what the SOTA means to us as students. The SOTA gives students a way to turn their experience into numerical evidence that eventually becomes our source of influence. If we choose not to participate, the impacts extend far more than just skipping a survey; we end up sacrificing one of the clearest opportunities we have to shape how Andover understands itself. We can’t change what’s already happened this year, but we can change what happens in the future. When self-advocacy is at stake, we must at least show dedication by spending fifteen minutes to support our community.
