St. Andrew's takes particular pride in its advisee program, which guides each student with warmth and care. Because our faculty are committed to every aspect of student life, they naturally serve as informal mentors to all students they come to know well through teaching, dorm parenting, and coaching. In addition, St. Andrew's assigns a formal faculty advisor to each student. The Admissions Office assigns advisors to all new students. Returning students may choose their advisor each year, and may retain the same advisor throughout their career at the School.

An advisor meets with her advisee regularly (typically once a week, at minimum), in both formal and informal sessions, and works closely with the student to council him in all aspects of their life at the School. Advisors also serve as the most important initial link between parents and the School, and may communicate with parents through conferences, telephone calls, and email.

In many ways, my advisor was a parent to me. I relied on him for a ton of emotional support, and he believed in me, spoke to me like I was an adult, and gave me a lot of autonomy. I fully credit him for helping me to develop that.
Carey Albertine ’92

Each faculty member is typically responsible for between five to eight advisees each academic year (with the entire group colloquially referred to as an "advisory"). Advisories often become small family units, gathering for dinners at the advisor's home, making off-campus excursions, and celebrating birthdays. Twice a month, advisories sit together for Thursday lunch in the Dining Hall.

St. Andrew's offers all its students varying levels of academic support, depending on student need and Form. Students new to St. Andrew's may encounter challenges in adapting themselves to new modes of learning, writing, and thinking, and to increased academic and personal responsibilities. Throughout their four years at St. Andrew's, students work with their faculty advisors to develop study strategies and good habits; these efforts allow each student to meet the intellectual challenges and opportunities of the School's curriculum with curiosity, determination, and integrity.

Our teachers are generous and available for extra help throughout the course of the academic year. If academic or organizational concerns arise about a student, Dean of Studies Gretchen Hurtt and Director of Academic Support Lindsay Goetz work with families, teachers and advisors to address these concerns (you can read more about our learning support program in the tab above). Consulting psychologist Dr. Dahra Jackson Williams provides the School with further evaluation and recommendations for effective learning strategies for individual students.

Academic advisors, teachers, and counselors may refer students who would benefit from more specific and ongoing academic coaching to Dean of Studies Gretchen Hurtt who will serve as the clearinghouse for students working with Director of Academic Support Maggie Harris. (Prior to a new student's arrival for the fall semester, any previously identified learning differences for that student should also be reported to Dean of Studies Gretchen Hurtt.) Testing for learning differences may be recommended by the School to help a student better understand his or her learning styles, strengths, and weaknesses. Testing reports will also provide guidance to the School; evaluations are reviewed by the Dean of Studies, the Academic Support Group (comprised of the Director of Academic Support, Director of Counseling, and Director of Testing), and the School’s consulting psychologist. From this review, a learning plan is created for the student, including how and whether requests for learning-difference accommodations may be implemented by the School. A learning plan and instructions for approved accommodations are provided to all faculty who teach or advise the student.

Academic support work may include:

• helping students prioritize time, manage multiple assignments, and scaffold larger and longer-term assignments;
• helping students hone executive functioning skills;
• making sure students know and understand any granted accommodations; and
• ongoing communication with teachers and/or the school’s consulting psychologist about effective teaching strategies to best meet students’ learning needs.

Other St. Andrew's faculty who serve as academic coaches may work with the student in concert with Academic Support over the course of the year, as the need arises.

Accommodations for Standardized Testing

The process for applying for extended time on College Board and other external examinations is managed by the School's Director of Testing, and should begin several months in advance of a desired testing date. Please contact Registrar and Director of Testing Cynthia Poarch for more information. You can also visit our Testing Info page for more information on available accommodations for standardized tests.

St. Andrew's academic program makes effective use of technology in all disciplines. On-campus Wifi and nearly 100 networked computers located in classrooms and laboratories across campus provide students and faculty with internet access, e-mail accounts, file storage, printing services, and specialized academic software. The School's Irene duPont Library also houses a wealth of technological resources, many of which are available for checkout.

Faculty are encouraged to incorporate the School's technological resources into their curriculums. For example:

• Film Studies and Music Composition students produce and edit movies and music in our state-of-the-art digital media studio.
• In our science laboratories, students use Vernier LoggerPro to model and analyze experimental data.
• In modern language classrooms, a fleet of School iPads allows students to hone their listening and speaking skills by working with interactive audio and video recordings.
• Physics students use blogs to record and reflect on their work, which in turn connect them with professors and science writers across the country.
• Choral students learn from online interactive theory and sight-reading resources, while instrumentalists record and submit their practice sessions for feedback from their instructors.
• Students in “flipped” mathematics classrooms view mini-lectures online and clarify, refine, and apply their understanding in collaborative problem-solving during class time.
• Both within computer science courses and as extracurricular exploration in other courses, students use the School's technology resources to develop software projects and apps of direct use to the School community.

Faculty and students also use the learning-management system Canvas. Canvas allows students detailed access to their courses, coursework, and assignments, and allows faculty to provide more immediate and continued feedback to students.

At St. Andrew's, students learn to be mindful users of technology—not just consumers of content but creators, discerning when, where, and how technology can best be employed.

The Irene duPont Library staff facilitates student access to information and provides formal library instruction to students. This instruction, begun during orientation classes for new students and continuing in academic classes throughout a student's four years at the School, affords students the library research skills necessary for academic work at St. Andrew's, in college, and beyond.

Built in October 1956 and renovated in 2008, the Library features group study rooms, individual study carrels, a computer lab, a periodical and reference room, and a collection of approximately 31,500 print volumes, 150,000 electronic books, 3,500 DVDs, 5000 academic streaming videos and 100 print periodicals. The print collection grows by about 700 books each year. Library Course Guides are used extensively by faculty to curate resources students need for coursework and research projects.

Additionally, the Library has access to more than 35 electronic reference sources and full-text article databases—such as JSTOR, Project Muse, Academic Search Complete and the Oxford English Dictionary—which cover a wide variety of subject areas. The Library website is the access point for these databases, as well as the School Archive.

For use by students and faculty, the Library also loans:

• digital and video cameras
• drones
• GPS systems
• smart pens
• 3D virtual reality glasses & 3D printing pens
• Kindles and iPads
• projectors
• calculators
• headphones
• Arduino Boards and tools
• Mac Book Airs
• Mobile Maker Space cart with 3D printer

and many other types of technological equipment. To learn more about the resources available, please visit the Irene duPont Library.

While the Library strives to provide access to the best technology and information resources in a secondary school setting, the Library itself remains a serene, casual, academic environment.