Mercersburg Academy

[EduCativ]

Founded in 1893 in Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic, Mercersburg is a private, coed, college preparatory boarding school with approximately 435 students (15 percent are day), grades 9-12 and postgraduate. We offer 170 courses, including AP and Honors, more than $7 million in financial aid, 26 varsity sports, and a state-of-the-art performing and visual arts center.
Adolescence is a time of rich discovery and tremendous growth. You are exploring your independence, challenging yourself with new experiences, and envisioning a horizon that is filled with potential. The boarding school's unique opportunity allows you to explore your independence in a safe and supportive learning environment while also stimulating your curiosity and pushing you to limits that you never thought possible.
At Mercersburg, you will be expected to embrace the concept of community by living among your peers who will herald from across the country and the globe. They will challenge you to consider different perspectives while becoming lifelong friends who will inspire you to be your authentic self in everything you do.
Mercersburg Academy prepares young men and women from diverse backgrounds for college and life in a global community. Students at Mercersburg pursue a rigorous and dynamic curriculum while learning to live together harmoniously in a supportive residential environment. Mercersburg's talented faculty instill in students the value of hard work and the importance of character and community as they teach students to think for themselves, to approach life thoughtfully and creatively, to thrive physically, to act morally, to value the spiritual dimension of human existence, and to serve others.
Outside the classroom, students immerse themselves in theater, sports, music, competitions, and camaraderie. They develop deep friendships with students from next door and from across the world. They explore new concepts and push past their limits. Mercersburg is a place of transformation. Students transform themselves—as they prepare to transform their world. Mercersburg graduates go on to the nation's top colleges and universities. Our alumni include Rhodes scholars, Olympians, and a Nobel laureate. And it is no wonder—at Mercersburg, students learn to be more vital, more fulfilled, more aware, more alive.
Every faculty member at Mercersburg is wholly focused on what they want the students to walk away with at the end of the course. This is the end goal – not what the teacher tells the students that they can repeat back, but what they can do with the knowledge that they acquire over the year. Knowing and learning are not mutually exclusive. We have to provide opportunities for the students to take what they learn, make sense of that knowledge, and build on it.
The concept of building a course with the end goals of the student in mind is called "backward design." Planning begins—regardless of whether the subject is chemistry, history, Spanish, or multivariable calculus—with the essential question: what are the ideas and concepts students should understand and master after completing a particular course? Start from there and build a strategy and a plan around these goals.

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