Phillips Exeter Academy

Phillips Exeter Academy is a coeducational boarding and day high school in Exeter, New Hampshire. It enrolls more than 1,000 students and sits about an hour north of Boston. Founded in 1781 by John Phillips, the school has no religious affiliation. It still frames its work around his charge to unite knowledge and goodness.

What sets teaching here apart is the Harkness method. Classes meet around an oval table. Twelve students and a teacher work through problems together, so faculty act less as lecturers and more as discussion guides. That shapes hiring. Departments look for teachers who will rethink how a lesson is built.

The academic program is unusually broad. Language offerings include Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, and Spanish, alongside strong math, science, humanities, and arts departments. With an endowment near $1.8 billion and annual revenue above $150 million, Phillips Exeter Academy funds competitive faculty salaries, on-campus housing for many teachers, term-time meals, and solid retirement contributions. In coastal New Hampshire, subsidized housing changes the real value of an offer.

Faculty life is residential. Most teachers live on or near campus, advise students, and take part in dorm or coaching duties. Exeter hires across academic departments, dorm roles, coaching, college counseling, admissions, advancement, and operations. Because the school is large for a boarding school, specialist openings appear more often than at smaller peers.

Most teaching jobs are posted in the fall and winter for the following academic year, with applications handled through the school's careers site.