Dear Cohort 1 Students and Families,
We are eager to welcome you to campus in a few short weeks. I write this addendum to my previous communication today to help you prepare and pack! You, and roughly 367 of your peers, will play an essential role this year in adopting, embracing, and modeling new ways of living on Andover’s campus. The current pandemic has created tremendous challenges for all of us, and it will impact our daily lives for the foreseeable future. Our collective commitment to the Non Sibi Safety Pledge will be key in keeping our community and our neighboring communities safe, enabling students to remain on campus, and allowing our community to invite more students to campus in the weeks following your arrival. We are counting on you!
Forms:
Please be sure to sign and submit your Non Sibi Safety Pledge and your health forms by Tuesday, September 1. If you are unable to meet this deadline, you will be asked to join your peers in the second cohort in October. And please know that if you are unable to comply with these expectations, you will be asked to access your Andover program from off campus.
Residential and Cluster Expectations:
We will send out your residential and cluster assignment the week of August 31 and we are counting on you to receive this information with an open mind and heart.
We will house you in 21 of our 42 dorms. You will live in mostly large dorms in singles and doubles (two-and three-room doubles). You will have explicit instructions and requirements related to meals, restroom use, common room usage, and traffic patterns in, out, and around your dormitory. After two weeks of quarantine in your dormitory and multiple rounds of testing, we hope that you will be able to engage with the members of your dorm pod (6-10 students who reside near you, depending on the architecture of the dorm) more casually (without face coverings and in closer proximity). Adults will always wear face coverings and maintain physical distance.
Every student in every dormitory will have individual and collective responsibilities and chores such as keeping your own room tidy, disinfecting high-touch surfaces in your room, taking out the trash, sweeping stairwells, shoveling snow, and keeping common rooms clean. Together you and your dormmates will take care of your homes on campus.
Student leaders will reside and serve in each of the 21 dormitories, not necessarily in the dorm assignments from last spring. Returning students, you will live near at least one of your peers whom you identified in your recent survey. We expect that all students will do their best to build safe, inclusive, supportive, and respectful residential spaces. We expect you to embrace new friends, build connections, and prioritize relationship-building with peers and adults. I believe these friendships and relationships will be the greatest gift Andover will give you.
Coming to Campus – Registration:
Please be sure to complete the registration survey to sign up for a registration date and time. Next week, we will send out more details about the registration process. If you have misplaced your survey or need to adjust your timing, please email Ms. Heintz.
- Thursday, September 10 - Invited Student Leaders
- Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12 - 9th- and 12th-graders
- Sunday, September 13 - 12th-graders taking the ACTs off campus on September 12
We need to limit the number of people traveling to and spending time on campus. Students, we ask that you do not bring more than one family member or friend with you to register and move in. If you plan to come to campus alone, please let us know by emailing deanofstudentsoffice@andover.edu.
When you arrive for registration, your first stop will be the Rebecca M. Sykes Wellness Center for your COVID-19 test. Once you receive a negative result, you will receive your BlueCard so that you can enter your dormitory.