All Male Colleges?

College Search & Selection
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In many respects New St. Andrews looks similar to Thomas Aquinas, except not Catholic, smaller and the campus is mainly a few buildings in downtown Moscow, Idaho. TAC has about 350 students, total, but New St. Andrews is about half that. Nobody lives on campus nor has a meal plan (no facilities for either of these).

I suggest you explore their accreditation. I am not sure that its accrediting bodies are as strong as we should expect.

In addition, NSA has an obvious literal fundamentalist orientation, especially in regard to Natural History (i.e. evolution). This is from their “Statement of Faith”:

In the beginning, God created the material universe from nothing in six ordinary days. He spoke, and by the Word of His power, it was. Our science on the nature and time of this event must be determined in full submission to the Word of God.

Sounds very much like you won’t be studying Darwin. Being conservative is one thing, but a major line is crossed when well documented scientific data are repudiated with nothing other than an appeal to the Bible. At a minimum you should study evolution so that you know what it claims. People are welcome to disagree with Darwin and his intellectual descendants, but in order to do that you have to know what they claim.

For what it is worth, even Catholics are not expected to believe in a literal six days of creation, nor deny evolution. Our last three popes have been very clear on that.

If you are seriously considering these super small colleges, take a look at Shimer College in Chicago. It is another secular “Great Books” college. Only has about 100 students, but their program looks as rigorous as anyone’s. Their campus situation is rather interesting. They also have pre-law program.
http://www.shimer.edu/about/academics/programs/ba-to-jd-program.php
http://www.shimer.edu/about/academics/

The great thing about the “Great Books” programs is that everybody, left and right, has to justify their positions. These schools have serious discussions every day.

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To be fair to New Saint Andrew’s College, they do read Darwin although whether students actually understand how compelling modern evidence is for some of his positions is debatable. Additionally, while the school does not have dorm life, in this case I’m going to say it’s somewhat unnecessary. For one, NSA is a super small, discussion focused college. That means that all students will get to know each other. The second, more compelling reason is that the cities of Pullman-Moscow are college towns and as such most rented houses and apartments next to the University of Idaho, a school next to NSA, are almost exclusively leased by UI students. The OP would be around a large number of people his age pursuing a roughly similar mission. Finally, the large number of socializing venues immediately adjacent to the school as well as the cultural and extracurriculars offered by UI and WSU make it so that should the students want to hang out or go beyond the confines of what New Saint Andrews offers they have an excellent ability to do so.

To the OP, [here’s](http://astro.temple.edu/~szelnick/actc/ListofGreatBooksPrograms2.htm)a list of schools which offer either a great books only curriculum or an option which is then incorporated into the greater curriculum. The links are outdated and there may be more schools that adopted aspects of the programs since it was published but it could still be a solid jumping off point.

One warning about the Great Book schools, if for whatever reason you decide you don’t like them, you effectively start at square one in terms of credits. While the programs at a place like St. Mary’s College of CA do not match the depth of a place like TAC, NSA, or St. John’s, they do offer alternatives that do not require abandoning the institution. As an added bonus, most of the schools listed are regionally accredited.

I looked into the admissions requirements of Harvard in the 17th century and they seem far easier than today. Keep in mind that at that time, almost all classically educated men in the colonies were taught Latin and Greek. Requiring proficiency in those languages was not an onerous requirement at all, particularly for a seminary.

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@NROTCgrad
New St. Andrews is definitely an interesting school. I just wanted to make a comment about this whole evolution thing. First a few points

  1. Christianity does NOT deny evolution (God could’ve caused evolution)
  2. The only think Christianity DOES deny is that humans came from apes. This is absolute heressey, if you are a true Christian. Humans were created by God.
    This is coming from a High Church Anglican. An Evangelical may tell you something different, but they can not justify their argument. I personally believe tat there was evolution. The only thing I don’t believe is that humans came from monkeys. (this is a bad theory anyways)
    I know this isn’t a religious forum, but I wanted to make that clear, because some people think that ALL conservative Protectants deny evolution. They are WRONG.
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Harvard’s curriculum in the 1636-1708 time frame (prior to President Leverett, the first non-clergy president) was NOT more rigorous, nor was Harvard more “selective.” It was an institution focused on training ministers and its curriculum was distinctly Puritan.

I attended Harvard in the early 1990’s… my curriculum was intensely rigorous: I had a dual concentration in physics and astrophysics. In the humanities, I studied Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche. I studies Norse literature and mythology, and the great literature of northern Europe. In languages, I took 2 years of Russian. In the arts, I took courses in poetry and the symphony. In the social sciences, I took courses on the socioeconomic industrialization of East Asia, and another course on the Cultural Revolution in China.

No, I didn’t take classical Latin or Greek or the Bible. By all means, study dead languages if you wish… doesn’t mean such a narrow “Christian classical” education is any more rigorous.

Frankly, I’d rather my studies prepare me for the 21st century… not the 17th.

145

If you think modern evolution claims “humans came from monkeys”, then you clearly do not understand evolution.

146

Then you don’t understand the concept of evolution at all, because that isn’t the claim. The theory (which yes, is commonly held, but I’m not about to make this an evolution argument) isn’t that we ‘come from monkeys’, but that we evolved from a common ancestor, among other nuances. If you’re going to hold an opinion on that claim, you might want to research what you’re talking about.

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According to Christianity, we did NOT evolve from one common ancestor.
Could other animals have come from a common ancestor=Yes
Did we come from a common ancestor= NO (we were created by God)
That is the Christian belief.

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And that is your belief to hold, but do not say that you don’t believe in evolution because ‘we didn’t come from monkeys and that’s a dumb theory’ because it makes you sound ignorant. Do you see the difference?

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^Yes, children learned how to read in Latin, then moved to Greek between age 8 and 10. Educated men knew these languages sometimes better than English. However, the ability to multiply and divide was considered a high-level skill. The ability to dance, fence, and ride horses were also considered important as a form of “distinction” (in Bourdieu’s sense.)
Kdkhan, you may enjoy the novel Caleb’s Crossing by G.Brooks, which follows the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in 1665 (this is true, as is the historical research about Martha’s Vineyard and Cambridge at that time.)

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That is YOUR belief… you do NOT speak for all Christians. Some Christians certainly do believe that humans evolved from a common ancestor.

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^^ Indeed, the best professor I had on the subject of evolution was a devout Presbyterian.

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@undeuxtrois
Did you even read my post? I DO believe in evolution: just not human evolution.

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@Kdkhan
The New St. Andrews College is evangelical and they do appear to deny almost all modern natural history, including evolution (but much more). So, it seems to me that you would disagree with them quite a lot.

NSA also appears to be extremely Calvinist and seems to take the extreme position on “predestination” (which I won’t go into because it probably would sidetrack the college issue). This might be another area where you would disagree with NSA.

The more I learn about Shimer the more I like it. :-?

@whenhen
Great points about the college town aspects of Moscow and Pullman. Also good to point out that the nature of the great books curriculum is that if you don’t finish you have to start all over again. The reverse is true too – if you start out at, say, a state university and transfer to a “great books” school, you go back to the very beginning. Nothing will transfer.

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@Kdkhan

Then I’ll amend my post: That is your belief to hold, but do not say that you don’t believe in human evolution because ‘we didn’t come from monkeys and that’s a dumb theory’ because it makes you sound ignorant on what the theory of [human] evolution proposes.

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If any kid was in desperate need of a broad liberal arts education…

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This would tend to indicate you see evolution as an ideological framework, but do not understand the scientific implications. It’s okay, most biology and chemistry classes at the high school level aren’t that rigorous, but you may benefit from taking a more rigorous class than the ones you’ve had, before you go to college.
Basically, replace “evolution” (since the term has heavy connotations) by “adaptability”. Adaptability is the core principle to explain life on this planet. Anything alive adapts. Humans are alive, and thus adapt. They adapt to droughts and to cold, for instance. They may need a long time - such as for the ability to craft and use tools - but as a species we’re incredibly adaptable and resilient. So are plants, animals, etc.

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This thread is making me a firm believer in de-evolution.

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That would be a course in the opposite direction of the Flynn Effect, @NickFlynn … You wouldn’t be able to tell from this post, but I really don’t care for puns.

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@harvardandberkeley
You amaze me with your comments. Tell me, did you attend the Communist UC-Berkley?(where they hold dumb protests every day) Also, Latin is not a “dead” language. Students who take Latin score higher on their LSAT. There is a lot of Latin in law and quite a bit of Greek in medicine. I am not denying that Harvard is rigorous (it is probably one of the most rigorous schools in America TODAY) but Latin and Greek are NOT easy to learn. I currently take Latin in school, and study Greek and Hebrew independently. I would bet you all the money in the world that if your average public school kid today had to take Latin and Greek together (with no multiple choice tests) they would fail miserably. I used to go to public school. In America today, most kids care more about athletics than academics. This was MOST CERTAINLY NOT the case in the 17th century. Being “cool” back then meant doing well academically. Now in order to be respected in schools, one must be fluent in the “Urban Dictionary slang version of English” (which I abhor) and be a good athlete. Don’t tell me that kids today are eve close academically to what kids were like in the 17th century. I sometimes watch reruns of old show called “College Bowl”, (where colleges would compete against one another on national TV in academic competitions) and it deeply saddens me that we do not have something like this today. Today people chear for thier college football teams, not their academic teams. They still have something like the College Bowl in England, and Oxford and Cambridge compete against each other all the time. That is a million times better than some college sporting event. It amuses me when people today act like society is SO much smarter than it used to be. It is actually a lot dumber. I’m an old fashioned conservative guy who loves academics, politics, theology, philosophy, classical music, fishing, gardening, and rowing. I listen to classical music all the time, and I am mocked by my pears. If you want to attack me for being old fashioned, go right ahead, but it does not phase me in the least. And for all of you science guys out there, remember that Theology is the queen of the sciences.

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You do realize that the overwhelming majority of people in the 17th century were illiterate right?

Also as a science student, the queen of science is math but that’s beside the point.