St. John's College

St. John's College Summary

St. John’s College describes itself as one college on two campuses: St. John’s College, Annapolis and St. John’s College, Santa Fe. As the successor to the King William’s School, a grammar school founded in 1696, St. John’s College, Annapolis was chartered in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the U.S. Since 1937, the school has followed an unusual curriculum, called The New Program or the Great Books Program, based on discussion of works from the Western philosophic and literary canon. Despite its name, St. John’s College has no religious affiliation. The Great Books program (often called simply “the Program” at St. John’s) was developed at the University of Chicago by Stringfellow Barr, Scott Buchanan, Robert Hutchins, and Mortimer Adler in the mid-1930s as an alternate form of education to the then rapidly changing undergraduate curriculum. St. John’s adopted the Great Books program in 1937, when the college was facing the possibility of financial and academic ruin. In line with the views of the program’s founders—who complained of “vocational interests” that “clutter” other college’s curricula—”Johnnies”, as St. John’s students style themselves, usually value intellectual pursuits for their own sake, regardless of whether they have practical application. Unlike mainstream U.S. colleges, St. John’s eschews contemporary textbooks, lectures, and examinations. St. John’s College was chartered in 1784 and later began granting bachelor’s degrees. In 1940, national attention was attracted to St. John’s by a story in Life Magazine entitled: The Classics: At St. John’s They Come into Their Own Once More. They were sold to the general public as well as to students, and by 1941 the St. John’s College bookshop was famous as the only source for English translations of works such as Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, St. Augustine’s De Musica, and Ptolemy’s Almagest. At the time, the New York Times, which had expected a legal battle royal comparable to the Dartmouth case, commented that “although a small college of fewer than 200 students, St. John’s has, because of its experimental liberal arts program, received more publicity and been the center of a greater academic controversy than most other colleges in the land. In late 1946 Forrestal withdrew the plan, in the face of public opposition and the disapproval of the House Naval Affairs Committee, but Barr and Scott Buchanan were already committed to leaving St. John’s and attempting to launch a new, similar college in Stockbridge, Massachusetts; In 1961, the governing board of St. John’s approved plans to establish a second college at Santa Fe, New Mexico. Its Great Hall has seen many college events, from balls feting Generals Lafayette and Washington to the unique St. John’s institutions called waltz parties. In 1975, a St. John’s graduate gave this description of how a St. John’s degree was received by other institutions: Motivational business speaker Zig Ziglar included a chapter on “St. John’s: A College That Works” in a 1997 book. As of 2005, St. John’s college has chosen not to participate in any collegiate rankings surveys, has not sent them their requested survey information. He notes that An educational reporter wrote: Still, the College Board reports that nearly all students submit SAT scores, and those of St. John’s students are among the highest in the nation, with the middle 50% of first year students scoring between 660-780 on the SAT Reasoning Verbal and 590-680 on the SAT Reasoning Math. Princeton Review’s list of the twenty colleges with the “happiest students” includes both St. John’s campuses, the Santa Fe campus ranking seventh and the Annapolis campus ranking seventeenth. In the 2005 edition of the Princeton Review Guide entitled “The Best 357 Colleges”, St. John’s College (Santa Fe) recieved the following rankings: St. John’s has a reputation for being politically liberal — in the past it has made several of the liberal lists on the Princeton Review. The wife of Republican Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld served on the college’s Board of Visitors and Governors, and through this connection a past college president, John Agresto, was selected to oversee the rebuilding of the higher-education system in Iraq. The same set of Great Books is the basis of the curriculum at both campuses of St. John’s College. Thomson, Dmitri Mendeleev, Berthollet, Joseph Proust The Bible Aristotle: De Anima, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Categories Apollonius: Conics Virgil: Aeneid Plutarch: Caesar and Cato the Younger Epictetus: Discourses, Manual Tacitus: Annals Ptolemy: Almagest Plotinus: The Enneads Augustine of Hippo: Confessions Anselm of Canterbury: Proslogion Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, Summa Contra Gentiles Dante: Divine Comedy Geoffrey Chaucer: Canterbury Tales Josquin Des Prez: Mass Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince, Discourses on Livy Nicolaus Copernicus: On the Revolutions of the Spheres Martin Luther: On the Freedom of a Christian François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Missa Papae Marcelli Michel de Montaigne: Essays François Viète: Introduction to the Analytical Art Francis Bacon: Novum Organum, New Atlantis William Shakespeare: Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, The Tempest, As You Like It, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Coriolanus, Sonnets Poems by: Andrew Marvell, John Donne, and other 16th- and 17th-century poets René Descartes: Geometry, Discourse on Method Blaise Pascal: Generation of Conic Sections Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion, Inventions Joseph Haydn: Quartets Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Operas Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonatas Franz Schubert: Songs Igor Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote Galileo Galilei: Dialogues on Two New Sciences René Descartes: Meditations on First Philosophy, Rules for the Direction of the Mind John Milton: Paradise Lost François de La Rochefoucauld: Maximes Jean de La Fontaine: Fables Blaise Pascal: Pensées Christiaan Huygens: Treatise on Light, On the Movement of Bodies by Impact George Eliot: Middlemarch Baruch Spinoza: Theologico-Political Treatise John Locke: Second Treatise of Government Jean Racine: Phèdre Isaac Newton: Principia Mathematica Johannes Kepler: Epitome IV Gottfried Leibniz: Monadology, Discourse on Metaphysics, Essay on Dynamics, Philosophical Essays, Principles of Nature and Grace Jonathan Swift: Gulliver’s Travels David Hume: A Treatise of Human Nature Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Social Contract, Discourse on Origins of Inequality Molière: The Misanthrope Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations Immanuel Kant: Critique of Pure Reason, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Metaphysics of Morals Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Don Giovanni Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice Richard Dedekind: Essay on the Theory of Numbers Leonhard Euler Declaration of Independence The Constitution Supreme Court opinions Hamilton, Jay, and Madison: The Federalist Papers Charles Darwin: The Origin of Species Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Phenomenology of Mind, “Logic” (from the Encyclopedia) Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky: Theory of Parallels Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy in America Abraham Lincoln: Selected Speeches Søren Kierkegaard: Philosophical Fragments, Fear and Trembling Karl Marx: Capital, Political and Economic Manuscripts of 1844, The German Ideology Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Brothers Karamazov Leo Tolstoy: War and Peace Herman Melville: Benito Cereno Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Flannery O’Connor: Parker’s Back, The Artificial Nigger Sigmund Freud: General Introduction to Psychoanalysis Booker T. In the case of St. John’s, the question is intensified because of St. John’s idiosyncratic program and educational philosophy. Boyer lampoons St. John’s College, claiming that “The fixed curriculum of the colonial era is as much an anachronism today as the stocks in the village square.” The two campuses of St. John’s College are said to be the only places in the world to have a Ptolemy Stone, which is an astronomical instrument invented by the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy to measure the altitude of celestial bodies, in this case, the sun.

Summary content courtesy of Wikipedia.

St. John's College Academics

Students with disabilities are not left alone with programs such as Wheelchair Accessibility, 20 work stations, available in: dorms, libraries, computer centers, Dorms Wired for Access to Campus-Wide Network, Email Accounts Provided to All Students, Commuter/Off-Campus Students Can Connect to Campus Network and Dorms Wired for High Speed Internet Connections. In addition, when any student is looking for some counseling or other types of support, Career Counseling, Employment Service, Financial Aid Counseling, Freshman Orientation Program, Health Services, Personal Counseling and Placement Service can help. St. John’s College is unique in its study options. For one thing, the university has a Weekend College. There’s never a reason to feel alone in your studies either, since St. John’s College has academic support services like Tutoring and Writing Center.

The most popular majors at St. John’s College rank in at one hundred percent liberal arts.

Are you an international student? St. John’s College’s Fall application deadline for international students is the 1st of March.

St. John's College Admissions

St. John’s College did not report their application fee. Transfer student are not ignored. That is, there were forty-five total number of transfer students who applied and thirty-six total number of transfer students who were admitted. Admission policy is currently Percent applicants admitted: 82% and Percent of students who return for sophomore year: 80%. Remember that this can change at any time.

Will you make it in time? Make sure to know when all the due dates and deadlines take place. It is also very important to submit financial aid applications as quickly as possible, make sure to check with the university about the specific date for this year. For St. John’s College, SAT and ACT score reports are very important, so you will want to check on the specific dates with the university. Moreover, the SAT subject section score due date was not reported. Transfer students must apply no later than the 1st of June, with priority applications due on the 1st of April. For priority students, financial aid applications are due no later than the 15th of February. For all student applicants of St. John’s College, the Fall application deadline is the 1st of March. Similarly, if you wish to apply with priority status make sure you application is in by the 1st of March. St. John’s College’s regular application due date was not reported.

St. John's College Financial Aid

Financial aid forms are Business/farm supplement, CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE, FAFSA and Noncustodial (divorced/separated) Parents Statement. Financial aid distribution is at sixty-seven percent scholarships per grants and thirty-three percent loans per jobs. In the same way, need based financial aid distribution is determined through Academics. If you are not a need based student, non-need distribution for financial aid is determined by State/District Residency. Financial aid for St. John’s College is readily accessible.

St. John's College Students

St. John’s College offers Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. The university is a Private, Liberal Arts College, Four-year, Coed, where 82 percent of the applicants were admitted, Regionally accredited and College Board member. Besides, the student body consists of nine percent in-state students, ninety-one percent out-of-state students, forty-four percent women, fifty-six percent men, one percent american indian per alaskan native, one percent asian per pacific islander, one percent black per non-hispanic, six percent hispanic, eighty-seven percent white per non-hispanic, two percent non-resident alien, three percent race per ethnicity unreported, thirty-eight percent in top 10th of graduating class, fifty-four percent in top quarter of graduating class, eighty-six percent in top half of graduating class, fifty percent had h.s. gpa of 3.0 and higher and fifty percent had h.s. gpa of 2.0 – 2.99. For an idea of the size of St. John’s College, the school boasts four hundred and fifteen degree-seeking undergrads, one hundred and fifteen first-time degree-seeking freshmen and ninety-six graduate enrollment. Additionally, it is part of an Rural setting, Small city (50,000 – 249,999) and Residential campus.

The campus at St. John’s College features the Rural setting, Small city (50,000 – 249,999) and Residential campus. Naturally, St. John’s College is located 60 miles from Albuquerque.Students should note that at St. John’s College, First-Year Students Guaranteed On-Campus Housing, ninety-nine percent of first-year students live in college housing, seventy-five percent of all undergraduates live in college housing, Coed Housing, Men’s Housing, Women’s Housing, Apartments For Married Students, Apartments For Single Students, Special Housing For Disabled Students and First-time first-year students allowed to have car. Moreover, the university has many unique facilites such as search and rescue center, Ptolemy stone.

St. John's College Athletics

Sports at St. John’s College include Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Basketball; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Cross_country; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Racquetball; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Soccer; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Softball; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Table_tennis; Men’s Intramural and Women’s Intramural Volleyball.