Am I a good fit?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Simon's Rock College of Bard
1

I was solicited by Simon’s Rock, and my mom has fallen in love with it and wants me to consider it. I’m a smart, motivated person, but I’m hesitant as to whether I would fit in.

I do fairly well in school. I have an extremely busy schedule and only take honors/AP level classes, and my grades are mostly A’s with a few B’s. I dual enroll, and take Sociology and Portfolio at community college. I’m a sophomore. I play varsity lacrosse. I’m VERY involved in the program NFTY. I’m on my youth board and I help run statewide social action projects.

The thing I’m concerned about is my personality. I’m an extremely social person. I frequently go out after work with friends. I go to all my youth group’s events (a requirement of being on board), and then I go out with friends after that. I’m definitely a party person. I’ve gone to sleep away camp my whole life, and I adore it. I always invisioned myself living in a house with a bunch of girls in college or doing greek life. I would definitly enjoy a place designed for smart, driven teens where I could recieve college credit, but I would never survive if all the people there were antisocial and entirely academically driven. I would be stifled. My question to anyone who knows about the college or goes/used to go there is: is there a large campus life? Are most people active in clubs and active socially? Are there parties? Is there any life off campus?

Sorry for how long this is. Thank you!

2

My son is in the same boat. We visited this weekend and he loved everything and met students he really liked it but he is a very social person. - vp of his high school class – very outgoing. Has expressed concern about whether there would be enough what he would call “normal” kids. I suggested to him that we visit during the week and he perhaps “shadows” a student for a day – so he can really get a feel for it. Maybe that would work for you. My own take-away is that the social scene is contained but it does exist. They do bring activities to the college and parties are largely dorm room parties. Sounded from our visit that clubs can be important to some of the students. My guess is you could easily get social action projects going through the college and get many students interested, My son was blown away by the class he sat in - he is smart and creative but not entirely academically driven AT ALL. Good luck!

3

I cannot say this strongly enough–stay as far away as possible from Simon’s Rock. Rosykitten and your son would be miserable there. My son went for 2 years and it was the biggest mistake of our parenting lives. The school is so depressing–they’re on the verge of insolvency, everything is falling apart (the dorms are disgusting), there are almost no course choices. Drugs are RAMPANT–many kids are there because they’ve been kicked out of their high schools for drug related offenses. And the majority of the rest of the kids are there because they’re emotionally troubled and have serious psychological issues. There is absolutely no “normal” social life. And the horrible part is that once you go there, you’re stuck. You don’t have a HS diploma, no other college will take you until you finish your AA (after 2 years), and going back to HS would look terrible on future college applications. They also make a big deal about helping kids transfer after 2 years, but their transfer office is a joke. They have NO clue what they’re doing–my son was shocked to find out that NONE of the top schools he was looking to transfer to had any idea what Simon’s Rock even was or how to handle his application. It was brutal. He wound up transferring to a school far less good that he could have gotten into if he’d stayed with his peers in HS. (But even that college was infinitely better than is experience at SR).

4

Hi Rosykitten,

I’m a former student of Simon’s Rock; I graduated with my Associates Degree a few years ago and now study elsewhere.

Academically, Simon’s Rock is as good as it gets, as you probably know. I took courses mostly in the social sciences while at Simon’s Rock, which I think are a strong suit of the college.

Socially, however, Simon’s Rock can be a bit wanting. It’s a small campus, first of all, which means in any situation that there is a smaller list of clubs and people to get to know. Most people are active in clubs or socially in some way. Clubs tend not to last particularly long (probably the only longstanding clubs are the Model United Nations, STAR (this sort of cultish social science group) and the Black Student Union), but usually you can find a few people to start a club in an area of interest. I agree with SFSClark that if you have a particular project you want to pursue you’d be able to find people. There are a few sports teams (soccer, basketball, and swimming), but no one takes them seriously. I’m not particularly a party person, but my understanding is that there is not much of a party scene. There are dances most Saturdays at the Student Union, but that’s pretty much it for on campus parties. Off campus, there is very little, since the school requires you live on campus. Also, there is very little alcohol, since very few students are of drinking age and the school prohibits students from having alcohol on campus.

If you’re looking for a Greek life experience, or something close to that, then SR is probably not the place you will find it. But, you can also transfer after two years to a school with one.

Some people have a terrible time at Simon’s Rock. jjj136’s child is not alone in that. I would say, however, that while the dorms are not great they are certainly functional, some people do drugs but not more than at other colleges, and that most students at Simon’s Rock are “normal” and do not have “serious psychological issues”. It is simply not true that no school will take you until you finish your AA. I know someone who got into the University of Pennsylvania after one year at SR. I even know someone who transferred after one semester. It is true that you if you don’t do well, you will have trouble transferring, but that’s true for any school you go to. People do transfer to top schools, from UPenn to University of Michigan to Swarthmore to NYU to Mount Holyoke to Dartmouth to Columbia, etc…

I know less about the transfer process since I ended up applying to only one school that I knew would offer me a scholarship. I would recommend transferring after two years. But, people who choose to stay for 4 years and do well go on to programs. Someone from a few years ago is pursuing their PHD in History at Harvard, someone from last year’s class is pursuing a PHD in Politics from JHU, and we had two Fullbright scholars last year from a graduating BA class of almost 20 people. Simon’s Rock is hardly the dead-end that jjj136 makes it out to be, although I do acknowledge that some people who go are not ready for college, do badly, and then have nowhere to go. These people tend to be not doing well in High School to begin with, which is the case for neither of the two above posters.

Hope this is of some help.

Best,

Anonymous