I currently am a junior high school student and I am looking through colleges in the U.S. The tricky part is, I do not wish to do Common Core since I do not believe it mathces my way of thinking. I cannot find a site or a generator of some sort that lets me filter colleges based on whether they offer the Core. Is there such a website or a web-app, or is it just impossible?
Edited title for more accuracy
ED
Common Core refers to government-mandated education standards in US K-12 public schools (not colleges). Do you mean that you’re not interested in colleges that have a required sequence of core classes?
I am referring to the Core Curriculum that most US Universities also follow. There is a core curriculum which every student attending a certain college follows, like the Engineering students are obligated to get Lit classes.
I think you want schools with an Open Curriculum - where you do not have distribution requirements in a variety of areas (humanities, social sciences, mathematics, foreign language, etc.). Brown is an example. Grinnell, Amherst, and Eugene Lang at the New School are others.
“Core Curriculum” is a specific term used for education for children through high school.
Smith College has no requirements.
Colleges can call those Core or GenEd…both ways.
That said, are you coming in with AP credits? If so, at a number of schools, AP credits can cover many/most/all of Core/GenEd.
My kids only had to take a Fine Arts and a LIt course because their AP credits covered all of the other Core/GenEd.
Look in particular into Hamilton, Amherst, Smith, Grinnell, Brown and a few others:
http://www.hudson.edu/custom_users/explorer/index.php?id=1551
http://www.hercampus.com/life/9-most-flexible-colleges-country
http://www.thecollegiateblog.org/2012/07/30/pros-and-cons-of-the-open-curriculum/
Most colleges do not have core curricula, but most do have general education requirements. Very few colleges have neither for bachelor’s degree study, such as Evergreen State.
Since you mentioned engineering, ABET accreditation for engineering bachelor’s degree programs requires that the college has a broad education component. So even colleges that have minimal general education like Brown (only a writing requirement) have more general education for engineering majors (Brown requires some humanities and social studies courses for engineering majors).
@atakolday I don’t know what kind of schools you are looking at but I know Penn doesn’t have a core curriculum and I am pretty sure Brown doesn’t either.
Look at Hampshire College and Univ of Rochester in addition to the schools mentioned above
If you do choose a school with an open curriculum, I suggest still adding some breadth to your education. There is a reason most colleges have distribution requirements that make students take a mix of Humanities, STEM and other (soft sciences, Business, etc.) courses, regardless of their major: so that students will have the benefit of a broad, well rounded education. This will benefit you in uncountable ways.
You mentioned Core in your original post. Two universities are known particularly well for their core curricula: Columbia and UChicago. A core curriculum typically features somewhat more strict distribution requirements than at most schools. For instance, to fulfill a Lit requirement, there might be two options instead of 20.
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Since you mentioned engineering,
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Ahhh…well, many colleges have reduced Core/GenEd for eng’g majors. My eng’g son’s AP courses pretty much covered all of his Core/GenEd.