The Hill School (commonly known as "The Hill") is a coeducational preparatory boarding school located in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, about 35Â mi (56Â km) northwest of Philadelphia. The Hill is part of the Ten Schools Admissions Organization (TSAO).
History
The Hill School was founded in 1851 by the Rev. Matthew Meigs as the Family Boarding School for Boys and Young Men. However, it has been known as the Hill School since at least 1874.
The school opened on May 1, 1851, enrolling 25 boys for the first year. According to Paul Chancellor’s The History of The Hill School: 1851-1976, “He [Meigs] wanted to stress that he was not founding still another academy, but a type of school quite new and rare in America. There is a tendency to think that the boys’ boarding school as we know it existed as long as there have been private schools. It has not.... The Hill was the first to be founded as a "family boarding school" (a school where the students lived on campus), as opposed to boarding with families in the town.
In 1998, the school became coeducational, enrolling 88 girls in its first year.
School life
Each grade at The Hill is known as a form, which is consistent with the English schooling term. Ninth grade is called third form, tenth grade is called fourth form, and so forth. The school’s academic year is divided into trimesters.
The Hill maintains a formal academic dress code that requires boys to wear a coat and tie and conservative trousers and girls to wear a blazer and appropriate collared dress shirt with trousers or skirt, or a conservative dress during the school day and for special events and activities. Casual academic dress and casual dress codes apply at other times.
Two required nondenominational chapel services are held during the school week. Voluntary worship services are offered each weekend during the school year.
Student clubs
Pipe Club
The pipe club used to be a club for 5th and 6th formers for the purpose of smoking tobacco during leisure time. Playing cards was permitted in the Pipe club on Tuesdays and Thursdays only at the club. The pipe club no longer operates today, and students may not be in possession of or use tobacco or nicotine products.
DECA
The Hill is one of the only private schools in the U.S. to have a DECA club, which was founded in 2011. Unlike most school, this is an extracurricular activity, as The Hill does not offer vocational courses in marketing. Despite this, several students advance to the international level annually.
Ellis Theatre Guild
The Ellis Theatre Guild was created in 1979 through the pledge of an annual donation from Mr. and Mrs. Michael Ellis. The Guild presents a musical (winter) and non-musical (spring) theatre production each year.
Alcohol
During the earliest days of the school, the consumption of alcohol was prevalent, and it was common for boys to visit a neighbouring inn for a drink. Today, alcohol is forbidden.
Academics
In the early 20th century, The Hill was a feeder school for Princeton University; a prominent "The Hill School Club" operated at Princeton for the benefit of alumni. The prevalence of Hill alumni, as well as those of Lawrenceville, Hotchkiss, Exeter and Phillips Academy at Princeton led F. Scott Fitzgerald to lament that it was those of 'lesser' preparatory schools which were more prepared for the fray. The admissions process was relaxed for Hill School students, with cases including George Garrett, Princeton 1952, who was admitted when he confessed that he liked the striped football uniforms. At one point, Lawrenceville and Hill sent more students to Princeton than all public schools combined Today, Hill alumni attend a wide variety of colleges.
The Hill School offers classes in each of its nine academic departments and offers 28 Advanced Placement courses.
Foreign languages
The Hill offers classes in Chinese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Latin, and Ancient Greek.
Partner schools
The Hill School has had a relationship with Charterhouse School in the United Kingdom since 1994 that includes instructional trips, along with exchanges of extracurricular programs and teachers. It is linked with the Maru a Pula School in Botswana. As well, the Hill hosts a Thai King's Scholar every year. The Hill School is a participating school in the Naval Academy Foundation Prep Program.
Athletics
In the early days of the school, boys played shinney, town ball, football and cricket. Matthew Meigs was not an athlete, yet allowed sporting pursuits, unlike his contemporaries such as Samuel Taylor of Phillips Academy. During John Meigs' tenure as headmaster, organized and interscholastic sports began at The Hill. Tennis became the dominant sport during this period, unlike baseball at other schools.
The Hill is a member of the Mid-Atlantic Prep League (MAPL), which the School joined in 1998. The Hill was a charter member of the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association (PAISAA), which became an officially sanctioned organization in 2011. In 2014, The Hill received associate membership in the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC).
The Hill’s rivalry with Lawrenceville dates back to 1887, and is the fifth-oldest high school rivalry in the United States. Originally an annual football game, the schools now compete against each other in all of the fall sports on either the first or second weekend in November.
Peddie School also maintains a "Hill Day" during which several teams from Hill and Peddie compete.
Participation in athletics is considered a key part of a Hill education. All third and fourth form students are required to participate in at least two seasons of interscholastic sports, and all fifth and sixth formers must play at least one interscholastic season. Students may fulfill a season requirement by serving as a student athletic trainer or team manager.
Campus
The Hill School operates on a 200-acre (81Â ha) campus.
Culture
The Hill has been described as different in style and spirit from its counterparts in New England, and has been described as strict and demanding. It has also been described as conservative.
Alumnus Oliver Stone described his experience at The Hill: "I hated the Hill School at the time. It was monastic. Horrible food, no girls. It was truly one of those Charles Dickens’ types of experiences.. And I really hated it. Years later I came to appreciate it. I think the inquiry and above all the discipline, of studying and concentrating and sitting down and doing it." The Hill has been criticized, alongside other East Coast Protestant schools, for promoting "snobbish", undemocratic, and "un-American values".
E. Digby Baltzell's book The Protestant Establishment identified Hill as one of the "select sixteen" best boarding schools in the United States. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, two of the 21 richest Nouveau riche families sent their sons to The Hill.
In popular culture
Film
The school was used as a filming location in the 2009 movie The Mighty Macs
Peter Quinn is a fictional alumnus of the Hill and Harvard.
Alumni
Hill alumni include the Pullmans, Mayos, Firestones, and Weyerhausers.
- Notable alumni
Rhodes scholars
Fulbright scholars
Headmasters
Controversies
Nude posture picture involvement
It has been alleged that The Hill took part in posture pictures, a since-discredited science which involved taking pictures of naked men and women at Ivy League and Seven Sisters colleges to diagnosis postural defects.
1995 defamation lawsuit
Wendell Chestnut, a former English master and squash coach at The Hill, was awarded $10.25 million after the headmaster allegedly issued defamatory statements. In 1997, the ruling was overturned.
2000 tax exemption ruling
In 2000, a ruling on the tax-exempt status of The Hill School was the first to designate a single-sex institution as a public charity in Pennsylvania, and was a precedent-setting case in the Commonwealth. (The case dealt with the years 1996-1998, before the school became co-ed).
2010 indecent assault scandal
Former Spanish teacher Carlos Ortega was charged by Pottstown Police for sexually assaulting a female student at the school. Ortega was subsequently sentenced to 3â€"23 months in prison.
2013 intoxication incident
In 2013, an unidentified faculty member was terminated after becoming intoxicated and making inappropriate comments to several students during a school trip to Italy.
References
External links
- The Hill School
- The Association of Boarding Schools profile
- Boarding School Review
- National Center for Education Statistics data for the Hill School