Top colleges with no core curriculum

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Which of the top 50 colleges in the US have no core curriculum/no required classes or little required classes to take?</p>

2

<p>The phrase to search for is “open curriculum”. Brown is one of the best-known examples.</p>

3

<p>Most of them have very few required classes, with Columbia and Cornell being an exception. Most schools do distribution requirements, in which you take 3-8 classes in a variety of disciplines. For those with no requirements? Amherst, Wesleyan, Brown, Vassar, Grinnell are some of them.</p>

4

<p>Although not quite top 50, but very close, University of Rochester has no required courses. They basically have a “design your own” degree program. They also have opportunities for a fifth year tuition free.</p>

5

<p>As stated, Brown for sure…</p>

6

<p>Did I say Cornell? I meant U’Chicago. My apologies</p>

7

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<p>It’s supposedly top 50 in US News, even when you consider ties.</p>

8

<p>I don’t think the U.Rochester program is that different from most colleges. You still need to take a few courses in areas of study away from you major. So an engineer still has to take social sciences and humanities for example. It is very flexible in how you pick the courses, but it isn’t “open” the way Brown is…</p>

9

<p>Hamilton</p>

<p>Wesleyan also says it has no requirements but “suggestions” or something along those lines</p>

10

<p>You’re right halcyon for the usnews list of national universities ( tie for #33). I had just been looking at the new Forbes list of all colleges and it came in at #61 - that’s what was in my head…</p>

11

<p>Smith College</p>

12

<p>Amherst and Brown are the best known open curriculum schools. Evergreen State is a less well known open curriculum school (and does not even require a major, unlike Amherst and Brown).</p>

<p>Some of the other usually mentioned ones do effectively have breadth requirements in that they require some out of major courses.</p>

<p>Grinnell limits students to using 48 credits (out of 124 for a bachelor’s degree) from one department, and 92 from one division (humanities, social studies, science).</p>

<p>Rochester requires a major, minor, or cluster of three courses in each of humanities, social studies, and science.</p>

<p>Wesleyan limits students to taking 16 out of 32 courses from one department.</p>

<p>Hamilton limits students to taking 15 out of 32 courses from one department.</p>

<p>Smith requires students to take 64 out of 128 credits outside of the department of their majors.</p>

13

<p>Brown and Amherst</p>

14

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<p>It’s humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences & engineering for the clusters… with choices in each, of course. They also have one required course - a freshman writing course - though there are many different topics to choose from, not just one. However, they are FAR more open than many schools, esp LACs where one needs to have courses in history, math, science, etc. If your major let you, you could skip math (or whatever) entirely. That would not be the case where my oldest goes (a more typical school).</p>

<p>They are not as open as Brown…</p>

15

<p>Surprisingly, Johns Hopkins.</p>

16

<p>JHU has breadth or distribution requirements:
[Requirements</a> for a B.A. or B.S. Degree](<a href=“http://www.jhu.edu/design/oliver/academic_manual/BA_BS.html]Requirements”>http://www.jhu.edu/design/oliver/academic_manual/BA_BS.html)</p>

17

<p>

I believe that engineers at Rochester only have to do one cluster, in social sciences or humanities. Other majors have do a cluster in both.</p>

18

<p>Not on the list of “top” schools (which I think is nonsense) but on the list of good schools, in case someone is reading this who isn’t aiming at Brown: Kalamazoo. </p>

<p>New College of Florida used to have a completely open curriculum. Now it just wants to make sure you take something in Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences. It’s still pretty broad.</p>

19

<p>Re: engineering majors</p>

<p>Note that ABET-accredited engineering degree programs require some humanities and social studies breadth courses. This is true even at Brown (although Brown seems to have one of the lightest humanities and social studies requirements for engineering majors, compared to other schools).</p>

20

<p>U Chicago has a core</p>

<p><a href=“The Core Curriculum | The College | The University of Chicago | The University of Chicago”>https://college.uchicago.edu/academics/college-core-curriculum&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;