The only thing I worry about: will the credits from New College transfer? My friend from Hampshire had some serious trouble getting all her credits and she has to take 18 credit loads just to graduate on time.
IF he goes to New College and IF he transfers, he will not have been the first student to have done so. He will figure it out IF all those unknown hypotheticals come to pass.
Lots of happy kids at New College. Sarasota is a nice city.
Caltech has p/f for first 2 terms then grades.
New College is a great school and a great place for environmental science. The lack of grades doesn’t seem to have hampered students from getting to graduate schools. The students I know who have attended love it. New College is a perfect fit for a self-motivated student with specific interests of study that might not be available elsewhere. From what I understand the opportunities for study at other colleges abound with reciprocal agreements (again, check it out).
And Sarasota is very pretty as you know.
. It is VERY liberal. Nice and friendly–but very liberal. Vegetarians fare better at the cafeteria. They do have outrageous parties, I hear.
Because they don’t have grades and your education is based on “contracts” you need to be very motivated to figure out what you want to study, the work you do and how to get there. The contract is made between you and a professor (what do you need to study, accomplish in specific time period). And a “thesis” is required for graduation (a hurdle for many students–but you’d have to check that out).
I believe that science based study (pre-med, hard science majors) has a LOT more structure for the student than the student who says “I want to study syntax of Latin of Romans between the years of 41 and 40 BC…” for example.
I didn’t get to visit the science facilities but heard they were wonderful. And you’ll still be taking all the regular classes (chem, physics, math etc) that an undergrad would take at any college.
NCF is a great college, very academically intense and rigorous, considered an “Ivy feeder” for grad school (the narrative evaluations actually help them). It’s more structured than Hamphire for instance, and some STEM majors (like CS) have a regular structure as far as I can tell.
In terms of level and peer environment, it’s not comparable academically to GCSU.
Politically, NCF is quite liberal (perhaps with a libertarian streak.) The location is gorgeous, as is the campus.
While not TAMU, GCSU is quite conservative indeed and it’s not in the best location.
Personally, I’d pick NCF in a heartbeat, even if it’s small - at worst, it’s always possible to transfer to a Florida public university that’ll be as good as GCSU (USF for instance has transfer scholarships). IN addition NCF is part of National Student Exchange, so you could attend other colleges in the US or Canada for a semester or a year and only pay NCF tuition. (You can go for all or part of your 2nd and 3rd year).
My parents actually both went to USF! And MYOS and Gouf: this is for my younger brother not me. I attend Goucher in MD and I’m a junior at the moment.
That’s interesting about the National Student Exchange. Learn something new all the time from these CC threads 
Potentially interested in NCF, which looks like an amazing place (with astoundingly good OOS aid), but unsure of its strengths across the board in S’s rather unique mix of interests, so options for exchanges are good to hear about. I’ll put up this link to campuses on the NSE to help anyone else who’s curious about that.
http://www.nse.org/exchange/memcam.asp
It’s also part of the Consortium for Innovative Environments in Learning, which includes Hampshire, Bennington, Pitzer, Fairhaven at WWU, New Century at George Mason, etc – and I think at least some of the CIEL schools enable their students to do exchanges for home-school tuition. I don’t see if NCF students could study at those schools reciprocally or or not.
OP–I know it’s for your younger brother, I just ended up saying “you” rather than student.
I am slightly confused. Does your brother live in GA and will get the Hope/Zell Miller scholarship or does he live in Florida?
They are Georgia residents.
He will get Hope. I’m not sure about the Zell Miller. I do know the Hope doesn’t pay what it used to pay though. I haven’t lived in Georgia in a while so not sure about the changes made to both the scholarships.
So my brother is going to be going to GCSU. I think in the end he thought it just made the most sense especially financially where he won’t have to take out any loans at GCSU VS New College and if you look long term once I graduate college: my parents really just have to worry about housing since he will have HOPE. Don’t get me wrong I was obviously rooting for New College, but at the end of the day it’s not my decision.
FYI, HOPE doesn’t cover the full cost of tuition. Only the Zell Miller does. But good luck to your brother in his college pursuits.
Maybe he has the Zell Miller then? I am not really sure, but my father said on the phone all he has to pay for is housing and they just visited GCSU and sent in the deposit while they were there.
The HOPE (and now we have the Zell Miller) has changed so much since I’ve left Georgia it’s really hard to keep up lol.
FYI. Even with Zell Miller you have to pay the mandatory required fees of about $900 a semester. Still it’s a good deal for in state students.
MichiganGeorgia is correct. The HOPE/Zell Miller cover tuition only, and only up to a certain amount/certain # of credit hours per semester. The percentage of tuition that HOPE covers varies from school to school. ZM has a tougher criteria to get (grades and standardized test scores, or being val/sal) and is harder to keep in college.