<p>This was our first college visit with our daughter who is a hs junior. Our goal was not only to check out St. Johns College but have a relaxing long weekend getaway.</p>
<p>St. Johns invites prospies to come for overnights either Monday or Thursday nights so they may attend the seminars on those nights. Our assigned visit time was from 4pm Thursday to 4pm Friday. </p>
<p>We flew into Albuquerque NM Wednesday afternoon and rented a car for the easy one hour drive to Santa Fe. Checked into our hotel and asked around for dinner suggestions which lead us to Pasquales in old town Santa Fe. Old town is very quaint and pedestrian friendly with many upscale shops. We sat at a communal table and were fortunate to have 2 charming ladies, both involved in education, from NM, to share our meal with. As a result of our chat we decided to go on a loop driving tour of the area Thursday AM which turned out to be a bit longer than expected (about 3 hours) but absolutely beautiful. Santa Fe at 7,000 feet is high desertmountains, pine trees, cactus sand, shrubs. There was still snow on a few mountain tops but the city is in a stage 3 drought.</p>
<p>DH, D and I met our student tour guide, Tristan, in the administration building. (I might add here that St. Johns is easy to get to because of signs (about 3 miles from town) and although most people we spoke with knew there was a college, nobody seemed to know anything about its unique Great Books curriculum.) We had Tristan to ourselves and she not only showed us the different buildings but also personalized the tour by telling us her own experiences. The tour ended at the dorm room that D would be sharing with 2 other visitors. </p>
<p>We decided to explore a little on our own and visited the bookstore and also ate dinner in the cafeteriafree for the students visiting but $6.50 for others. Food was fairnothing to write home about. DH and I left after dinner. </p>
<p>In preparation for her visit D was given an assignment to read pp1-59 in The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology by Edmund Husserl as this was what was being discussed in the Senior Seminar that night that all the prospies were asked to attend. There were about a total of 5 or 6 student visitors. Not everyone did the reading and since it is assigned just to make the seminar more interesting no big deal. The prospies are not allowed to enter into the discussion.</p>
<p>Besides the senior seminar, my D was invited to a freshman language class and sophomore math class the following day. She was very enthusiastic about the style of teaching and said that even though the students entered loudly and in high spirits, the classroom discussions were very intense, thoughtful and very focused. The last scheduled event on Friday afternoon was a one-on-one interview with an admissions person that she said didnt feel like an interview but more like someone who just wanted to get to know her. </p>
<p>D was very impressed with this school and could see herself fitting in (says students were very friendly). I made it a point to speak with the other prospies (I could only catch 3 of them) and they all felt that this was the school for them!</p>
<p>Our official visit was over but St. Johns has a lecture every Friday night that all are invited to. We headed back to the old town for another authentic southwest dinner and returned for the 8pm lecture. One of the books from the school says that all the students attend. No way was there 450 studentsor even close. The topic was Phenomenology and Aesthetics given by a visiting prof from Rice. Thankfully there was coffee served as this was one of the driest talks Ive had the pleasure of sitting through.</p>
<p>After a quick pass through the Bataan Museum in Santa Fe on Saturday AM, we drove back to Albuquerque to catch our flight home to California. Ill be surprised if any other school makes my D feel as welcome as St. Johns did!</p>