Current or former students weigh in on St John's College?

Colleges and Universities A-Z St. John's College - Maryland
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My daughter is planning to apply. Any current or former students willing to share good and bad experiences?

My daughter is the kind of kid who reads Plato’s republic over the summer, and spends more time following her own interests (music, creative writing, reading about math, learning sign language, etc) than schoolwork. She has been very frustrated by high school’s focus on memorization, plug-and-chug math classes, formulaic papers, and how in discussions even the teachers seem to rely on the Sparknotes interpretation.

So St John’s would seem a good fit. Down-sides? She’s a bit worried that the reading will be too superficial. She’s worried as well about the grading; she’d prefer if there were no grades, and wonders whether kids actually check their grades every semester. She’s worried about having to give up all the cool classes she reads about in other LAC’s course catalogs. She’d like to study the great works of the non-Western world, too.

We’ve visited the school but she has yet to sit in on a class

Comments appreciated

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My son goes to St. John’s (current Junior) and it sounds like it might be a good match for your daughter. The best thing to do is to take part in a one-week summer class, although it might be too late for her if she’s a senior. My son did this and it sealed the deal. The reading is not superficial… especially as they get on in the years, students keep dropping out because it is intense. The best part is that students are involved in discussions in the seminars.

My son checked his grades once only so far. I also think there should be no grades, but that seems to be the trend in colleges. My daughter goes to Bennington, and there you choose grades/no grades. Apparently it’s about 50/50. Bennington is the flip side of St. John’s! All choice vs. no choice. But both great educations.

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I spent two years at St. John’s – I would have been class of '12 – and she definitely sounds like a Johnnie to me!

Most students drawn to the school have similar problems with the standard approach to education. It’s pretty much ideal for anyone who’s intelligent, loves to learn for learning’s sake, and enjoys talking to other people about the latest cool thing they read or learned about. My work study job was in the admissions office, and that’s the kind of applicant they’re always looking for – so much, in fact, that a strong, well-reasoned essay can often outweigh low test scores or a substandard transcript.

As far as grades go, they certainly don’t have an impact on day to day life. The only way to find out what they are is to go in person to the registrar’s office and request a copy of your current transcript. Few people bother doing it, unless they’re planning to transfer, or about to graduate. The two times I requested mine, I had to wait while they located my file in a cabinet and then made a copy of that page – which is hilariously analog compared to pretty much any other school in the country, and sums up the general attitude about the importance of such things. I didn’t know anyone else who even checked theirs, so there definitely isn’t that toxic competitive culture about GPAs that you see with some schools.

I’m not sure I know what you mean about the reading possibly being superficial. Is that because some books are only read in part? Every part of everything you do as a student there is all about the reading, so that’s definitely not how I’d characterize them. In my time as a student and aid in the admissions office, I saw a handful of kids who arrived thinking they’d be able to skim the assigned readings and fake their way to a degree, and it was always pretty funny to watch that blow up in their faces. You just can’t do that in a discussion at St. John’s – the purpose is to examine the material in depth, analyzing its meaning and purpose and probing at the implications of whatever idea or argument the author presented. When someone offers an opinion that’s vague, unhelpful, and clearly not based on careful reading, a fellow student will usually ask what they’re basing that on. Everyone brings the relevant book to class with them, so throughout the discussion, people will cite a particular page and read a paragraph that supports or illustrates their point.

I guess what I’m saying is, the program definitely encourages careful, engaged reading, and anyone who isn’t there to do that usually washes out pretty fast.

As for the allure of all the different, unrelated things one can study at other schools – I relate to that a lot, but as one of my favorite tutors pointed out to me once, you can study those things any time, at any point in your life. And when you do, you’ll get a lot more out of the experience if you go into it with the sharply honed critical thinking skills and solid foundation of knowledge you get from St. John’s.

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Thanks Peachyswift, why did you transfer?

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So - what about the math and science parts of the curriculum? How are those approached?

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london203: In math, primarily original texts are read (ie, Euclid, Ptolemy, Apollonius, Viete, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Lobachevski, Dedekind, Einstein) Class time is occupied by demonstrating these authors’ proofs and arguments, usually at the board, and by discussing questions raised by the texts. These might be comprehension questions (what was the justification for that step in the proof? was anyone else surprised by that move?), mathematical questions (is arithmetic more certain than geometry? what is a mathematical symbol?), metaphysical questions (are mathematical objects real? Is nature mathematical? What is a number?), interpretive questions (how does this proof’s rhetoric aim to convince?), even ethical questions (how does this sort of math effect one’s soul?).

Lab has a similar dependence on original texts and discussion, but there are regular laboratory sessions where hands-on observation, measurement, and experimentation are carried out.

In both classes, supporting manuals may be used in addition to primary texts.