What it's like to attend the most elite boarding school in America

Melia Robinson/BI

Students in class sit at the oval-shaped Harkness Table, the cornerstone of Phillips Exeter Academy's unique, student-centered teaching method.

We recently named Phillips Exeter Academy the most elite boarding school in America - for the second year in a row.

Phillips Exeter is highly selective and has educated some of the most powerful people in history. Its alumni base includes 19 state governors, five US senators, five Olympic athletes, two Nobel Prize winners, a US President, and even tech moguls like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Quora founder Adam D'Angelo.

Many millionaires and a handful of billionaires are products of the Exeter community and have helped grow the school's endowment to $1.15 billion - more than any other boarding school and larger than many colleges as well.

The fund supports many students' tuition, which otherwise costs $47,790 a year for boarding students.

When Dr. John Phillips, a graduate of Harvard and resident of Exeter, New Hampshire opened the Academy in 1781, he set out to teach young men "the great and real business of living." More than two centuries later, the now co-ed school prides itself on the strength of its network, its commitment to spreading kindness, and on its use of the Harkness Method, a unique teaching model that schools around the world strive to imitate.

In the fall of 2014, I spent the day as a student at Phillips Exeter Academy, located in Exeter, New Hampshire, to see what makes it so unique.

Additional reporting by Emmie Martin.