Marina (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} marinalives) wrote,@ 2004-07-29 18:39:00 |
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Colleges!
I just did a phone conference "information session" with an admissions councilor from Prescott College. I was the only prospective student there, which made me pretty nervous at first, but it went really well. The admissions person, Amanda, was very talkative and extroverted and encouraged me to ask a lot of questions.
Things I learned about Prescott:
They have more vans, for taking students on field trips and to off-campus classes, than buildings. Many class sizes are limited to how many fit in a van.
There are no classes with more than twelve students.
Prescott people are big on potlucks. Many if not most classes end with a potluck.
To graduate, you need a senior project/thesis and 16 classes in your competance or major, 8 classes in your bredth or minor (which is required), and 8 classes in whatever. You have to spend at least four semesters at Prescott. You have to submit a plan for your senior project a year and a half before your planned graduation, which would give me a year and a half to decide if I transfered as a sophmore, which I probably would.
Since I homeschooled through high school, I need to submit a transcript portfolio thing, which would include classes by year or subject, class descriptions, some kind of grade or evaluation, and a bibliography. They usually get four or five homeschooled students every year out of 140 students total.
Although a lot of people are attracted to Prescott because of it's outdoorsy classes and Adventure Education degree, many of them switch to the departments I'm considering: Arts and Letters, Cultural and Regional Studies, and Human Development. This is good to know, because it means those departments are strong enough to lure people away when that's not why they originally decided to come.
A whole heckuva lot of their classes are field-based, and the ones that aren't are in seminar format.
Not all Prescott students have dredlocks and unshaved legs (although a lot of them do) but all of them want to save the world.
Prescott College really is my first choice. Their block-semester calendar, their focus on saving the world, their encouragement of passion, the small size, the huge amount of time they spend out of the classroom... Everything about them is what I want, and I admire their priorities.
The other two colleges I'm looking at really closely right now are Antioch College in Ohio and Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. Antioch is another big learn-by-doing school, and Bryn Mawr has anthropology, linguistics, and behavioral science departments that look fascinating. Also, I've thought I might like to go to a women-only college for a while.
I may visit those two in September, after Not Back To School Camp and before PCC starts. I've been wanting to go to Wisconsin for a while, but I'm not sure that's going to work. We'll see.
Life's been pretty slow this month, which is wonderful after being so busy all winter and spring. I've been leaving the house only a few times a week, to get groceries or go to the bank or post office. August will be a bit busier. I'll be spending a week or so on Waldron Island as I mentioned last entry, and a weekend in California for the homeschooling conference (which I'm really excited about! I'm going to be volunteering a lot and being on the "grown without school" panel), and NBTSC. And my art college class, of course... I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to just have people around again, after having only two or three other people living here this month. :)
One big thing that happened was that Zack decided to go to Philadelphia for two or three months to help his grandparents move out of the house they've had for 37 years. I'm all sad and lonely without him living twenty blocks away, but we've certainly been talking a ton. Technology is wonderful. We're taking full advantage of IRC, email, and cheap long distance telephones.
I just did a phone conference "information session" with an admissions councilor from Prescott College. I was the only prospective student there, which made me pretty nervous at first, but it went really well. The admissions person, Amanda, was very talkative and extroverted and encouraged me to ask a lot of questions.
Things I learned about Prescott:
They have more vans, for taking students on field trips and to off-campus classes, than buildings. Many class sizes are limited to how many fit in a van.
There are no classes with more than twelve students.
Prescott people are big on potlucks. Many if not most classes end with a potluck.
To graduate, you need a senior project/thesis and 16 classes in your competance or major, 8 classes in your bredth or minor (which is required), and 8 classes in whatever. You have to spend at least four semesters at Prescott. You have to submit a plan for your senior project a year and a half before your planned graduation, which would give me a year and a half to decide if I transfered as a sophmore, which I probably would.
Since I homeschooled through high school, I need to submit a transcript portfolio thing, which would include classes by year or subject, class descriptions, some kind of grade or evaluation, and a bibliography. They usually get four or five homeschooled students every year out of 140 students total.
Although a lot of people are attracted to Prescott because of it's outdoorsy classes and Adventure Education degree, many of them switch to the departments I'm considering: Arts and Letters, Cultural and Regional Studies, and Human Development. This is good to know, because it means those departments are strong enough to lure people away when that's not why they originally decided to come.
A whole heckuva lot of their classes are field-based, and the ones that aren't are in seminar format.
Not all Prescott students have dredlocks and unshaved legs (although a lot of them do) but all of them want to save the world.
Prescott College really is my first choice. Their block-semester calendar, their focus on saving the world, their encouragement of passion, the small size, the huge amount of time they spend out of the classroom... Everything about them is what I want, and I admire their priorities.
The other two colleges I'm looking at really closely right now are Antioch College in Ohio and Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. Antioch is another big learn-by-doing school, and Bryn Mawr has anthropology, linguistics, and behavioral science departments that look fascinating. Also, I've thought I might like to go to a women-only college for a while.
I may visit those two in September, after Not Back To School Camp and before PCC starts. I've been wanting to go to Wisconsin for a while, but I'm not sure that's going to work. We'll see.
Life's been pretty slow this month, which is wonderful after being so busy all winter and spring. I've been leaving the house only a few times a week, to get groceries or go to the bank or post office. August will be a bit busier. I'll be spending a week or so on Waldron Island as I mentioned last entry, and a weekend in California for the homeschooling conference (which I'm really excited about! I'm going to be volunteering a lot and being on the "grown without school" panel), and NBTSC. And my art college class, of course... I'm looking forward to it. It'll be nice to just have people around again, after having only two or three other people living here this month. :)
One big thing that happened was that Zack decided to go to Philadelphia for two or three months to help his grandparents move out of the house they've had for 37 years. I'm all sad and lonely without him living twenty blocks away, but we've certainly been talking a ton. Technology is wonderful. We're taking full advantage of IRC, email, and cheap long distance telephones.
