<p>On the Annapolis campus I haven’t heard of a right wing bias… and my overnight didn’t suggest that there was one but of course it was only one night and one seminar.</p>
<p>I will be going to the admitted students day next week and there is a mock seminar, hopefully that will shed some light on what being part of the discussion is really like but yes I have heard that usually freshman seminars suck and the next years are the ones that are much better.</p>
<p>The program at UMCP has discussions as well.</p>
<p>I experienced the same thing at Chicago. It means the process is working. In the first year classes you get lots of bloviating. Students show off, or wander off, or stand off. Good professors know how to gently deflate egos or draw wallflowers out.</p>
<p>@Dinozzo
I truly hope you could bring what you learn from the experience on that day in SJC to this forum and let me know. U see that I could only learn it as a second-hand experience for I won’t be able to fly to the campus. Thank you if you have time to inform of me about it.</p>
<p>I’m facing a similar decision: St. John’s Annapolis vs. Berkeley, except for that I have to pay much more to go to Berkeley. In your case, I don’t know much about the UMD program, but it sounds pretty different from the Great Books. Since you said you want to go to grad school, Johnnies, as I remember, are very strong in getting PhDs. You can search and make sure about that. I think there is a list of rankings of “most students go for PhD” or something like that. So regardless money, I’d vote for St. John’s.</p>
<p>So jealous that you get to visit the campus and join seminars!! I wish I could, too… (I’m an international.)</p>
<p>Thanks for your statistics. Though I don’t know about this website, whether it is reliable or not, I find it very exciting about SJC.
It always emerges dilemmas for students who apply SJC. In fact it is a contradict between tradition and innovation. I have my problem as well, if you have time would you mind come to my post and help? It’s named as SJC vs Lafayette. Thanks.</p>
<p>The source of all that data is the same. It comes from the Weighted Baccalaureate Origins Study by the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium. I believe the source is reputable.</p>
<p>Now, that does not mean that everyone draws the same conclusions from these findings. Even if findings are accurate, people may draw different conclusions. For example, if SJC has a higher PhD production rate than famous schools like Harvard, does that mean SJC’s education is better than Harvard’s? Not necessarily. Maybe more Harvard graduates than SJC graduates choose law school, medical school, or business school. Maybe Harvard graduates get into stronger PhD programs. I don’t know.</p>
<p>Still, I think these rates are a good sign that St. John’s is doing something right. A PhD is hard to get. You need to be motivated and well-prepared to complete a doctoral program.</p>
<p>I ditto what Ghostt says. SJ is the only geniune liberal arts college. By the way, I saw that you say that you are interested in business. Contrary to what many think, an excellent liberal arts education is excellent training for business. Critical thinking is far more difficult to teach than vocational skills like those taught at many undergraduate business programs. You can learn Excel on your own. Being taught how to analyze issues critically is far more difficult.</p>
<p>@tk21769: Regarding transferring to SJ: I believe that you have to start as a fresman bc they don’t accept courses from another college. Amazingly, there sre transfers every year who choose to lose a year of college so they can do the SJ program.</p>
<p>I’ve known St. Johns well for many years. I had a daughter who attended (and graduated from) Reed. I have a daughter currently at Shimer. My daughter who went to Reed wishes she had gone to Shimer, which may tell you something. Not that Reed was bad–she got a great education. But she would not do it again. Since you are interested in graduate school, you might note that over 50% of Shimer grads go on to graduate school, and over 20% receive doctoral degrees, which is higher than any college or university in the country except two technical intitutions (Harvey Mudd and Cal Poly). St. Johns is certainly a very good choice, but I do understand the financil considerations. Shimer is much cheaper and gives a pretty fair amount of financial aid. My daughter at Shimer receives about 20% of her costs in financial aid, which is not a lot, but we are hardly poor (nor rich). My daughter who went to Reed, a far more expensive school, never received a penny in financial aid.</p>
<p>St. John’s–like most liberal arts college–has many more students and faculty who are on the left than on the right. We do have libertarians and we do have Straussians (although the link between Strauss and neoconservatism is questionable at best and most of the students who are interested in Strauss that I know are also registered Democrats), but we have almost no mainstream republicans or paleoconservatives. I’ve been involved with campus wide voter registration drives since sophomore year and, in all that time, I doubt if I’ve registered more than two republicans. That said, as long as you’re thoughtful about it, nobody will humiliate you or call into question your intellectual credibility if you do sympathize with the right.</p>
<p>There are kinks that will need to be worked out throughout the first two years, but class conversations will improve exponentially as you move through the program and beyond Sophomore enabling. Tutors, on the whole, do demand rigor and clarity of thought. Generally speaking, you won’t get far if you are either lazy or senseless (unfortunately, character defects can be harder to sort out and eradicate).</p>
<p>St. John’s is as frustrating as it is rewarding. Good luck deciding!</p>
<p>Derek Dupliessie, could you expand on what is frustrating about St J’s? Also, could you tell me more about Sophomore enabling? I know what it is, but could you tell me how it really works? And why wouldn’t the college do it at the end of freshman year? Why would you wait until sophomore year to tell someone he is not right for the school?</p>
<p>I’m not a student, but in the absence of one I will respond with what I’ve been told by former SJC alumnus.</p>
<p>Sophomore enabling is an extended Don Rag. If a student is not participating in class, falling very hard behind in their studies or getting into frequent trouble with the administration then the school will not enable him to continue their studies for the following year. The student may, of course, apply for admission the next year and continue their studies (my teacher was friendly with a dis-enabled student during his time at Catholic University who continued his studies after a one year hiatus).</p>
<p>During my visit on campus the tour leader told me that dis-enabling is rare, but does happen to some every year. I would imagine that the school does not have freshman enabling because:</p>
<p>1) Students are still growing their freshman year, and they deserve time to grow inside the community, it would not be fair to dis-enable a student without at least one or two don rags.</p>
<p>2) Many students leave on their own accord freshman year without being dis-enabled.</p>
<p>Again I am not a SJC student so, take the info for what it is.</p>
<p>Thanks! I was under the impression that you cannot transfer any credits to St. J’s from another institution. I guess that is why I have heard that most students who are asked to leave never return if they study elsewhere for a year.</p>
<p>One note about Shimer–back in my day, it was best known as a school that encouraged applications from students who wanted to leave high school early. I had two friends who went there after their sophomore year of high school (if I recall correctly–certainly before senior year). You might want to ask if that’s still a major part of the student body, if that matters to you. Also, the college went through some lean years when it didn’t really have a campus. You want to make sure that’s all in the past.</p>
<p>You cannot transfer credits from outside the college to the college. From inside the college out the credits transfer with variation depending on the school</p>
Thank you if you have time to inform of me about it.</p>