st. John's college(NM) vs Lafayette College

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Right now I have two offers that make me hesitate between. One is SJC in New Mexico and the other is Lafayette college. SJC offers a financial aid almost 41k, including loans and jobs. Lafayette offers a package almost 40k, also including loans but much lighter than SJC's.</p>

<p>Both colleges for me are affordable right now for they are generous to offer enough aids. But new problem emerged when I received SJC's FA package this morning. I like Lafa, and I also like SJC. However, I do not know which one to choose. I do not know whether I should risk of my future to try an education like it in SJC. </p>

<p>I really need some one who enrolled in SJC or lafayette to help figure it out. </p>

<h2>Thanks!</h2>

<p>About me, I won't major in Engineering. I love psychology and literature and management and theatre art. I like reading but my mother tongue is Chinese. SJC's admission officer said he thought my English is perfect enough to join their community. I hope so. But I wonder if I could live that nerdy as Johnnies do in Santa Fe. </p>

<p>Please help me to judge! I am confusing and unable to decide.</p>

2

<p>Please, I really need some one to help :)</p>

3

<p>You’re in the same predicament that I am in (except I’m an Annapolis kid, second year I want to try Santa Fe though).</p>

<p>I’m choosing between a full ride to UMD and SJC.</p>

<p>Every Johnnie faces this decision, and its a hard one. For one I think your english is good, but its certainly a little rough. The books you will be reading at SJC are very difficult and they are not going to be written in a form of english you are used to. Before reading that english was not your primary language I was going to tell you that you would need to brush up on your grammer before attending SJC, and while I’m impressed with how well you are using english right now, I wonder if the fact that english is not a fluent language for you will make the curriculum much more of a struggle than it already is.</p>

<p>Aside from this, you will want to be very sure of your decision before committing to an SJC education. Its great, but there are a lot of sacrifices you make. Your social life will certainly take a hit, and you won’t run into a very diverse student body. On the plus side the student body is by far the most intelligent on almost any campus in the United States and you will get wrapped up in some of the best conversations of your life, just realize that you might go through some “dry spells”. One of my teachers explained the worst semester of his time at SJC was when he was in a core group with an ex who made an argument out of everything he said.</p>

<p>But alas, it all comes down to that last sentence “I wonder if I could live that nerdy as Johnnies do in Santa Fe”. If you consider it a nerd life, to be honest, it might not be for you. To attend SJC you have to attack the curriculum with vigor and excitement, otherwise you will hate your time there because reading and speaking are all you do.</p>

<p>Visit it again and talk to Johnnies and future Johnnies (like me) as much as you can. The best thing is to try and get in touch with people who will be in your year and classes, there are only 125 undergrads each year and we will have a big pull on how your four years at SJC will seem. Also realize that to go to SJC is to choose a very vigorous program, and a very different college experience than any of your friends.</p>

<p>but, as someone who has had two SJC alums as teachers (one has a full ride to GW law school the other is at Harvard now) and visited the campus three times I can tell you that you will be in the company of some of the smartest kids in the US.</p>

4

<p>@Dinozzo: As you say, I am trying best to contact with someone in Lafayette or in SJC. Still enough time till May 1st. To be honest, I’ve learned about SJC far beyond all other colleges that I applied for. And I always believe this college will admit me and like to offer enough aid. I’ve even made up my mind to prepare for a life in SJC. However, the problem is that I was surprised by the offer from Lafayette. And this is a high-ranked college compared with SJC. My counselor who is an American says SJC won’t offer a bright future if I want to hunt for jobs in USA, comparatively. </p>

<p>For myself, I heard that the rate of transfer-out is pretty high in SJC. ----------See some one said:“As I understand it the transfer rate out of St. Johns is very high. A girl I know went for two years and then transferred so she could have more flexibility in her major and more breadth in the courses available to her. She said the drop off due to transfers out is very high for the same reasons.” -----------I pretty worry about it as well. My parents won’t be able to support my education any longer if I transfer to a college without financial aid and I don’t want to waste of my time on transferring from one to another community. </p>

<p>Then I ask myself, do I simply want to demonstrate that I have such a capability in handling the challenging program in SJC? Or do I really love it and will I be that much engaging in such a community? I am much sure that being nerdy is actually my characteristic. lol. I hate parties especially drinking and hanging out with many people that I don’t know. I like reading. And I sometimes find reading to myself is a bit confusing. I hope someone could guide me when I read. There are some features that make SJC seemly an appropriate choice. </p>

<p>Here steps in Lafayette. A good but common college, beautiful, good situation, bustling community, and see another adviser said to me: "Lafayette is considered an elite school. You may have more of a varied college experience at Lafayette. Also, if you decide that you don’t want to study something you may have more options at Lafayette. From what I have heard their campus is beautiful. I don’t know anything about the area it is in but it is about an hour or so from Philly and NYC. " -------------- I suppose he means that if I like, I could try a lot of things and have a great flexibility if I want to drop one or pick another.
I have no experience in studying in America. I grow up in China and my high school curriculum is very inflexible. I didn’t like some but I was bound with them. I liked others but I had no permission to learn them in class. That’s what Chinese students desperately hate. Nonetheless, you know that thought both being inflexible, SJC and My high school teach extremely different things. So I don’t worry about my gains in SJC. I know it will be much. But I also have no idea whether I will learn the same much in a flexible and easier community. I have never been granted a chance to choose courses that I like and to design my curriculum and schedule my time. That’s attracting and certainly I’d like to try.</p>

<p>Oh I talk that much but it seems that I only state my paradoxes without making any sensible choice. I hope some one could talk more with me and offer more opinions and most importantly, facts about both colleges so that I could make a final decision.</p>

5

<p>I hope your not suggesting that the high acceptance rate at SJC in comparison to other schools make it a lower ranking or less prestigious school than lafayette. The school is self selective, because the difficulty and focus of the SJC program turn away many prospective students, not to mention the cost of the school. Only 300 some students apply to SJC each year, I imagine the number is much larger at lafayette.</p>

<p>As far as prestige goes, SJC could be considered one of the most prestigious liberal arts college in the country, so much so that it is normal for medical schools to wave most of their requirements for SJC students. Not to mention that SJC students regularly score higher than ivy league students on the MCATs and LSATs, but you could say the same for other lesser known colleges like Wooster. Of the two SJC alums who taught me in highschool, one is at Harvard right now and the other has a full scholarship to GW.</p>

6

<p>@guoli</p>

<p>You bring up some valid points, so I’m going to break up your response paragraph and by paragraph and respond best I can as someone who is American and also very interested in SJC.</p>

<h1>1: Your stance on rankings and the outlook that SJC will not help you get a job in America worries me. For one, the ranking system I think you are referring to is USA Today’s list of colleges. On this list SJC is ranked rather low I believe.</h1>

<p>But to be honest it should not even be ranked, as of 2005 St. John’s has boycotted and refused to be a part of USA’s rankings. Thus they have not sent USA any information regarding the school. This of course leads one to ask “how the hell is USA Today scoring SJC if it has no numerical information on the school?”. The way USA Today ranks schools is rather questionable, an example is that 25% of the score of a school is its “reputation” but where do people go to find more information about the school in question? USA Today’s ranking for last year. I honestly don’t put any wait into a schools ranking myself, and if your worried that the students who go to SJC aren’t students who have been accepted into “good schools” I can assure you they are, I was accepted to John’s Hopkins (#13 on USA’s list) and a friend of mine who has just sent her deposite into the Annapolis campus was accepted with a full scholarship to Dartmouth (#9). The reason why I am deciding between UMD and SJC, not JHU and SJC, is because I don’t believe the education at JHU is necessarily better than UMD (and worth paying tens of thousands of dollars for) and if I’m going to pay upwards of 40K I’m going to pay for a proper education, which I believe SJC is.</p>

<p>As far as job prospects what your counselor said was just ******** (no offense). Johnnies are doctors, businessmen, teachers, CIA and FBI agents, not to mention writers and artists. From a law perspective I can tell you that SJC lawyers have been incredibly successful, and their constant status and the boss of my boss of my boss and the firms that I’ve interned in are what first got me interested in the school. As one of my father’s friends told me when I got accepted into SJC, “From my perspective, its the best preparation for a career in law in the country.” Two weeks later this “friend” was arguing infront of the supreme court.</p>

<p>The transfer out rate is high for two reasons, 1) As I said above, the program is not for everyone and there are many students who go to SJC thinking it is a school that does not focus on Math and Science when in fact the program is heavy in both, 2) If you don’t keep up on your work at SJC they kick you out the second year, it doesn’t happen to many students however but it happens.</p>

<h1>2 Yes transferring sucks, especially out of SJC. Don’t do it. If you think you might transfer then Lafyette is a better choice, just keep in mind that if you do end up wanting to transfer into SJC you have to start the program from the beginning (which is why the freshmen class is full of people 20+ years old)</h1>

<h1>3 Again I agree, you’ll have to be very engaged with the material because if your not your time at SJC will be horrible because it is all you do. There is still drinking, parties and drugs at SJC. Its at every school. And you’ll want to try to branch out your first semester so as not to become labeled a “room-Johnnie”.</h1>

<h1>4 Lafayette is a more traditional college than SJC. At SJC you will end up with a very focused experience. There are no lectures, only discussions and the topics are math, science, seminar (philosophy and history), music, and language (greek and french). You will not choose any of your classes and there are no electives. Every Johnnie has the same degree, a bachelor of arts (double major in the history of science and math, and philosophy with a minor in music and a minor in linguistics). There are only written papers and oral examinations at SJC, no tests. At Lafayette you will be able to choose a variety of different undergrad majors, there will be lectures and you will have the flexibility to choose different electives and class times. They are two very different experiences and there are pros and cons to each. I personally think that one learns to think and express themselves effectively at SJC. Your english will probably get alot better too, since the language used in discussions at St. John’s is of a higher caliber than that used in TA classes at large universities. However, if you want to get a specialized undergrad that stands on its own (engineering or economics mainly…perhaps something in banking) then Lafayette is a better choice, because they offer that degree.</h1>

<p>Its not an easy decision, and they are two very different experiences. I understand your position and its hard. Keep researching and asking questions. </p>

<p>P.S. When you look at your aid packages try to see which school gave you more money and which gave you more loans, there’s a big difference and I know SJC has a habit of saying they are giving you aid when they are actually giving federal loans.</p>

7

<p>Thank you Dinozzo. I think it for the whole day and I will continue to judge in the nearing month. </p>

<h1>1 Ranking is not a big point. It’s simply a way to show the prestige of one college to people all around the world. Since I am an intl applicant without sufficient informations and examples around, I do have a sort of dependent on the USnews Rank. Who does not, for intl student? However, my choice to apply for SJC at lease demonstrates that, to some degree, I don’t as much care about the rank as other foreigners, because most of us never know such a college, not say to judge its fit or not. Then I will say, Rank doesn’t really bother.</h1>

<h1>2 Jobs are not included in my near future actually. My mom urges me to earn at least master degree and hopes me to earn it in an University with great prestige. I don’t know the information about where those graduates in SJC go. Hope you may know about that.</h1>

<h1>3 Room Jonnies…Eh, I just don’t like drink much and have parties. But I like joining activities or programs or any kind of associations that I might have interest in. I mean, I enjoy being with people except being drunk and taking drugs, which are not permitted by parents and culture.</h1>

<h1>4 Yes!! Exactly as you stated, Lafayette offers common things as many other colleges do for hundred years. Yet SJC’s tried this program for decades and it’s definitely a radical way to educate.</h1>

<p>I have read your post and the replies in it. One doubts about the income students are not good enough. Also he questions the tutors may not as great as those in other colleges. I don’t know either about these details. It only makes sense when you are a native. I am not. However, your and your friend’s experience have shown that students enrolled are very competent as those out of SJC and they are even greater because they dare to risk. I really appreciate that quality because I myself is taking risks of applying abroad and dropping courses in China. So I think of such a similarity and feel a bit closer to SJC. </p>

<h1>5 Add one more. I have to face this dilemma only because of my lack of interest in engineering. Hence I know that even finally enroll in Lafayette, I won’t pursue a degree in that major. Here I have a general understanding of liberal art. It is liberal in two ways. One is to allow me design my education and life. The other is to allow me find how to follow minds, which I refer to SJC’s great book program. I think it will force students to pay attention to the activity of their minds. That’s what I comprehend.</h1>

<h1>6 Hard decision. I agree with my whole heart. But it seems that you have already made it. Have you decided to enroll SJC? I try to contact with some one who still study in SJC and who I hope are sophomore or junior. Also more people who know some facts about this unique college. If I could talk with some alumni, it will be great! I fear if I ask Randall, the admission officer who admitted me, it may cast some negative impression of me on him for it seems that I applied this college without full consideration. Of course I’d like to avoid that negative idea…</h1>

<h1>7 If you like to know, I show the exact loans info in my aid packages of both colleges.</h1>

<p>Lafayette Loan $3,500 per year. SJC $6,500 per year.
After four years, the difference is huge if you turn it into RMB with an exchange rate 1:6.58. This matters but not that much. I never know how finance of my family will go after four years.</p>

<p>Well, thank you for your kind information and sensible judge. I hope hear more from you! And could we exchange contact information like emails or anything that you use frequently and that I could reach you easily?</p>

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<p>guoli, one of the biggest challenges you would face is the language used in the reading materials. Dinozzo is right to raise this issue. Have you read any ancient Chinese books? The language is very different from modern Chinese, isn’t it? Well, when you read Chaucer or Shakespeare, we have the same problem. Maybe it is even worse. You can probably get Chinese translations for Shakespeare to help prepare, but it might be hard to find good Chinese versions for some of the other books. </p>

<p>Maybe SJC has good experience with Asian students. Of course, many Chinese students who get accepted to US colleges are very smart and hard-working. SJC wants their students to succeed, so they would not accept you if they did not think you have a good chance. Still, you need to think about these things.</p>

9

<p>No… I have not read ancient English but I heard about the different words used in those books. I do notice this challenge. It’s one side that I need to dig deeper. I agree that sometimes I find reading materials pretty confusing. It’s my disadvantage that English is not my mother tongue. Cognitive sometimes need a translation first than follows a comprehension. I think perhaps I need to directly talk with those Chinese who learn in Santa Fe. How do you think? How do I contact with them if I don’t even know how to find them…?</p>

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<p>Ask SJC’s admission office to help you find Chinese students there.</p>

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<p>I cannot offer any input on St. John’s College but S1 is a Jr. at Lafayette and loves it. He is an engineer but chose Lafayette because it is a liberal arts college and he could pursue his musical interests and other in a school that is not a total tech school (he was looking at Rensselaer). There are 3 other kids there from his HS and they are not engineers and love it as well. The campus is beautiful, has a great library, offers diverse activities, and has profs that like to teach and interact. It has been a great college experience for him and he is not a partying kid. He has found lots to do there and great friends as well. He says everyone who goes there is a bit of a nerd. Lafayette alumni are well connected and help with internships, externships and job fairs. They are strong in the NJ, PA, NY area but graduates have jobs elsewhere as well. Let me know if you need more info.</p>

12

<p>Guoli945:
I’m a current senior at St. John’s College (the Annapolis campus) and I’d be happy to answer any specific questions you want to put to me about campus life, and I’ll try to address some of the things you’ve brought up in the course of this thread. I’m in the process of trying to get you the e-mail address of a Chinese student here that I’m acquainted with; I haven’t gotten a reply yet, but I suspect she’ll be happy to talk about her experiences here and answer your questions. And please don’t be afraid to contact any college admissions office, whether it’s St. John’s or Lafayette, for more information, especially if you can’t easily get to the campus and question students there personally. I would think that they’d take it as a sign that you were truly interested. :)</p>

<p>I can also give you some statistics regarding what careers Johnnies end up in. The numbers I’ll quote come from a current Admissions publication; however, the last survey they took of alumni was in 2000, with 40% of alumni from both Santa Fe and Annapolis responding. The numbers shouldn’t have changed that much, since the Program hasn’t changed, but if you want newer numbers you can ask Ms. Jaime Dunn (<a href=“mailto:Jaime.Dunn@sjca.edu”>Jaime.Dunn@sjca.edu</a>), the Career Services Director in Annapolis, or Ms. Margaret Odell (<a href=“mailto:modell@sjcsf.edu”>modell@sjcsf.edu</a>), the Career Services Director in Santa Fe. I would also recommend e-mailing one of them if you have questions about a particular field of post-graduate study, getting into grad school as a Johnnie in general, or if you want to get in touch with alums in a specific graduate school or on a certain career path. </p>

<p>The list of graduate schools Johnnies go into in various fields was way too long to type out, but I know that people going into math, science or medical programs can either take required classes over their summers, or have some of those required classes waived. There’s also lots of chances to get lab experience both by being a lab assistant at St. John’s (it’s a campus job) and/or by getting internships in laboratories. We have a good alumni network in science and medicine especially, and it’s quite easy to get a summer internship through alums and then fund it through grants provided by St. John’s.</p>

<p>Though I wrote my senior essay on quantum mechanics, in terms of a career I’m more interested in communication and the arts, specifically public programming/advertising and art museums, and I’ve found that it’s not too hard to convince people in those fields to consider a St. John’s student. Everyone’s a fan of communication skills, a developed sense of personal responsibility, the ability to work in a group, flexibility and willingness to learn, and so forth, and the Career Services office can give you tips on how to ‘sell yourself’ as a Johnnie. You can definitely make the unusual breadth and focus of a St. John’s education work to your advantage.</p>

<p>Anyway, some statistics:</p>

<p>21.9% are in Education (2/3 teachers or administrators in colleges or universities, 1/3 are in elementary or secondary schools)
18.8% are in Communication and the arts (journalism, publishing, performing arts, architecture, radio/television/film, writing and editing, museum and library administration)
17.3% are in Business or related occupations (sales, marketing, consulting/management, finance, running businesses in general, etc.)
9.7% work in Law, as private practitioners or in the judiciary
9.4% are in Computers/Science/Math
6.6% work in Social Services (counseling, psychology, social work, ministry)
9.4% do other things- urban planning, skilled craftsmanship, foreign service/Peace Corps, government service, homemaking, farming, military, conservation/ecology, etc.</p>

<p>You also said that you liked “joining activities or programs or any kind of associations that [you] might have interest in.” I’m at the Annapolis campus so this might not be as helpful as it could be, but we have a fairly full complement of the usual college activities. We have campus publications (newspapers and a literary magazine), a really fabulous intramural program, martial arts, game-playing groups, a group that shows good movies, a group that shows hilariously terrible movies, dancing, community service projects, musical groups (vocal and instrumental), a storytelling group, etc. Santa Fe has hiking and rock-climbing instead of intramurals. Are you interested in something specific? I can get back to you on whether either campus has it, or you can probably start a club for it if you end up going to St. John’s.</p>

<p>You’ve expressed confidence in the tutors already, and I’d like to say that generally it’s not misplaced. I’ve had one or two bad experiences, but the good experiences have far outweighed the bad ones in number and how much they affected my time at St. John’s. It can be hard to find people who can lead a classroom without necessarily having the authority that comes from knowing far more than the students do. The people who can do it, though, are the ones who have have worked very hard, fairly recently, to learn what they’re teaching. It’s inspiring when a tutor makes something look effortless, but it’s even more inspiring when a tutor reveals that they’ve put a lot of effort into what they’re doing now, because it shows that you get out of the Program what you put into it.</p>

<p>I’m going to address one last remark of yours and then I’ll shut up, I promise. “Then I ask myself, do I simply want to demonstrate that I have such a capability in handling the challenging program in SJC? Or do I really love it and will I be that much engaging in such a community?” Honestly, I think both of those are good reasons for going to SJC; or at least, they were my reasons. I wanted to make myself more responsible for my own education by going someplace where class participation would be hugely important. I wanted to prove to myself that given a supportive environment, I could read and understand scientific theories, mathematical proofs, and dense philosophical texts, even though the same things scared me in high school. And I was attracted to the scope of the program and the attitudes of the students, and I figured (and was right) that I would have a place in a community that valued the same things I did.</p>