Phillips Exeter Academy

Exeter · NH · Private independent

Private

SAT 1438 avg 23 National Merit Semifinalists

At a glance

Programs & features
  • Teaches no APCollege-level courses with a national exam each May. A score of 3+ "passes" and can earn college credit; the pass rate tells you whether a school's AP program has substance behind the course list.-designated courses — common among independent schools that run their own advanced curriculum
  • 23 National Merit SemifinalistsRoughly the top 1% of PSAT scorers in each state — about 16,000 juniors nationally. A useful gauge of a school's academic top end. (2025)
Academic signals
  • SAT avg 1438 (25-75: 1360–1550)
  • ACT 25-75: 30–35
  • APCollege-level courses with a national exam each May. A score of 3+ "passes" and can earn college credit; the pass rate tells you whether a school's AP program has substance behind the course list. exam pass rate 96% — the school teaches no AP courses; students sit the exams anyway

Composed from the school's own published profile (2025), and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

You've seen Phillips Exeter Academy. What are your child's real college odds? Check any college in 10 seconds — no email needed — then get the free Family Decision Report: Reach / Competitive / Match / Likely + the real cost range for every college on their list. Check odds →

How Phillips Exeter Academy compares for families

Among the academically strongest private schools in our database.

  • NationallySAT mean 1438 (≈ top 4% of US test-takers) · 96% AP pass rate (US average: ~60%) · 23 National Merit Semifinalists last year (NMSF is the top 1% of US PSAT scorers) · Top 5% of the 218 curated private schools in our database on NMSF concentration.
  • LocallyNH students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Seacoast Performance Academy, Learning Skills Academy, Seacoast Learning Collaborative and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.

For Parents

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Your state's public flagship

University of New Hampshire-Main Campus

87%
admit rate
$19,202
in-state tuition/yr · $39,852 out-of-state
1120–1320
SAT 25–75 · ACT 26–31

The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $23,805/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.

See the full University of New Hampshire-Main Campus profile → Estimate your odds with your scores →

Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.

Their published matriculation list

Where their graduates enrolled

Phillips Exeter Academy publishes where its graduates enrolled. What follows is copied from that document — 193 colleges, in the document's own order.

Years, as the document states them
COLLEGE MATRICULATION 2023-2025

Boston College Bowdoin Brown Chicago Columbia Cornell Dartmouth George Washington Georgetown Harvard MIT NYU Northeastern Notre Dame Penn Princeton Trinity College Tufts UC - Berkeley U Michigan USC Wellesley Yale Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences American Amherst Antioch Appalachian State Arizona State Auburn
and 163 more
Babson Barnard Bates Bentley Berea College Berklee College of Music Boston University Brandeis Bryn Mawr Bucknell Cal Tech Carleton Carnegie Mellon Case Western Catholic University Central Florida Clark Clemson Colby Colgate Colorado College Columbia Univ. - Sciences Po Dual BA Program Columbia Univ. Int'l Dual BA Program Connecticut College CUNY Macaulay Honors College Davidson Denison Dickinson Drew Drexel Duke Emmanuel Emory Fairfield Fordham Franklin and Marshall Furman Georgia Tech Grinnell Hamilton Harvey Mudd Haverford Hobart and William Smith Holy Cross Howard Indiana Bloomington James Madison Johns Hopkins Kenyon Lehigh Louisiana State Loyola - Chicago Macalester Merrimack Michigan State Middlebury Morehouse Mount Holyoke Northwestern Occidental Ohio State Oregon State Pace Penn State Pitzer Pomona Providence Purdue Purdue - Northwest Rhode Island Rice RISD RIT Rollins RPI Rutgers Saint Anselm Saint Leo Santa Clara Sarah Lawrence Scripps Skidmore Smith Sophie Davis South Dakota State SMU Southwestern Spelman St. Joseph's St. Lawrence St. Mary's College of Maryland St. Olaf College Stanford Stonehill Suffolk Swarthmore Syracuse The New School Thomas College Towson Trinity U Tulane U.S. Air Force Academy U.S. Naval Academy Union (NY) U Alabama UC - Irvine UC - San Diego UC - Santa Barbara UCLA U Colorado - Boulder UConn U Denver U Florida U Georgia U Illinois – Chicago U Illinois - Urbana-Champaign U Kentucky U Maine U Maryland UMass - Amherst UMass - Lowell U Miami UNC - Chapel Hill UNC - Charlotte U New Hampshire U Oregon U Pittsburgh U Regina U Richmond U Rochester U South Carolina U Tennessee - Knoxville U Texas - Austin U Texas – San Antonio U Utah U Vermont U Virginia U Washington U Wisconsin - Madison U Wisconsin – La Crosse Vanderbilt Vassar Villanova Virgina Tech Wake Forest Washington & Lee Washington U Wesleyan William & Mary Williams WPI Edinburgh ITEMS - Campus Monterrey King's College London McGill University Trinity College Dublin UCL U British Columbia U Guelph U Michigan - Shanghai Jiao Tong University U St. Andrews U Toronto

These graduates went on to the colleges above.

Check your kid's odds at these colleges →

We'll load 10 from the list above — add your name, email and your child's numbers and we'll see where your child lands at each.

Independently verified As published by Phillips Exeter Academy — 2025-26 Profile for Colleges ↗. Found at: p.2, 'COLLEGE MATRICULATION 2023-2025' section — '99% of graduates attending four-year institution.' Colleges are grouped into three printed tiers: '≥10 Student.

Enrollment trend & projection

Total enrollment went from 1,081 in 2018 to 1,064 in 2022 — over 4 years.
-1.6%
Why only 3 data points?

Private school enrollment comes from the NCES Private School Universe Survey (PSS), which is collected every other year — not annually like public-school data. The most recent published collection is 2021–22; NCES targeted spring 2026 for the 2023–24 release — we'll load it as soon as it's published.

For a more current snapshot, see Phillips Exeter Academy's own published school profile (as of 2025-26): www.exeter.edu/profile-for-colleges ↗

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -0.4%/year, projecting from 2022's 1,064 students:

2023
1,060
2025
1,051
2027
1,043

≈ 21 fewer students by 2027 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Revenue at risk

At tuition per student, the 21 students projected to be lost by 2027 represent ≈ $336,000/year in tuition at risk.

Tuition is an editable estimate (PSS doesn't publish tuition) — set it to your school's figure.

Most similar nearby high schools

The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
Seacoast Performance Academy
Exeter
Private 1.2 75
Learning Skills Academy
Rye
Private 7.6 58 -6.5%
Seacoast Learning Collaborative
Newton
Private 10.0 44
Busche Academy
Chester
Private 15.5 24
Longview School
Deerfield
Private 15.6 21
Pinkerton Academy
Derry
Private 19.4 3,074
Rochester Learning Academy
Somersworth
Private 20.3 13
Monarch School Of New England
Rochester
Private 23.3 63 +16.7%

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