What do you all know about SJC?
It's not the one in New York.
>>7571055
Yes
i know it is a great books school that have two campuses, annapolis and santa fe. was looking to transfer to annapolis my soph yr but everyone in my life talked me out of it. said the degree from there wouldn't have been practical. so i stayed the course and got a biz degree. currently unemployed. REAL PRACTICAL EVERYONE. anyway, they give away their reading lists online, good stuff if you want to read thru their curriculum yourself which ive been doing for years
I've heard it was a very bad school, essentially a scam. I did meet someone who graduated from there and had a job at a good college though.
>>7572728
Are you the one whose mother, who's a professor, said that? Mind expanding on what exactly the scam is?
>>7572794
This, I wanna know too.
>>7572145
Yes, this is what I'm afraid of. However, I'm planning on pursuing post-grad. I wonder if they'll offer me good aid.
I'm a senior in high school (18, for the record), and I'm thinking of taking one of their pre-college courses. Anyone know anything about the program?
Also, while I'm asking, how hard is it to get into a good school (top 25) with a lowish GPA (3.6) but good SATs (2200)? I got a perfect reading SAT score for what it's worth. My college essays are pretty good and I was an editor on my school's newspaper, to give you an idea of what the rest of my app is like.
You don't have to answer this, but if any of you can give me an idea of my prospects that would be awesome. I'm sorta grasping in the dark.
>>7573856
>I'm thinking of taking one of their pre-college courses
Uhh, I think you may be confusing OP's St. John's with somewhere else. We're talking about the Great Books program, which I don't think does pre-college courses (or at least it'd be major news to me).
>>7573893
Or are you talking about the Summer Program?
>>7573900
Yeah, St. John's college in Annapolis, they have literary courses for high schoolers and rising freshmen over the summer.
>>7573900
>>7573936
Okay, I am familiar with those, though they're so informal it throws me off to hear them described as courses.
They're led akin to how the proper classes at SJC are, namely, as student led seminars, with usually a professor or two present at every class to help facilitate discussions (and keep high school kids from being shits to each other).
You basically do your reading and go discuss it. If you get assigned anything with math, you'll probably be expected to go up to the board to demonstrate it (and if you need help,, you can ask your classmates) and give an account of what the author is doing.
Can't answer your second question, since I only applied to SJC; your chances of getting in there are good, but they accept a lot of people who apply (which balanced out by how many of them leave for disciplinary reasons, bad grades or academic performance, or disdain at how little it resembles "book club").
>>7573963
Thanks, that's cool to hear. Do you know what the kids are like there? I don't want to be surrounded by plebs, or worse, by people whose literary knowledge far surpasses mine.
>>7573963
Would you say SJC would hinder my employability? I really want to go and will probably be accepted, but I don't want to gather upwards of 100k in debt only to find myself unable to pay it back.
Current senior here.
>>7572728
Not sure what they meant. All schools are scams in the sense that they're a giant investment in what is nothing more than a piece of paper IF (and this is a big if) you do nothing at school besides the program. No matter where you go, you have to visit the fucking career services office and preferably get some internships or whatever.
If they mean scam in the sense that it's not a 'real' or 'rigorous' education, then I can understand that complaint but can't take it seriously. It's extremely rigorous and difficult in its own right. It IS maybe slightly more possible to bullshit your way through this education than others, but the lazy bullshitting student are picking english degrees or women's studies at other institutions anyways. At least here, if you want to really immerse yourself in the program, you're immersing yourself in a good one.
>>7573856
You will almost certainly get in to SJC if you apply. Their acceptance rate is 85%. We like to explain away this alarmingly high number by boasting that our applicant pool is "highly self selecting," but the truth is probably a mixture of that and the fact that the applicant pool is VERY small for market reasons, unfortunately. We absolutely admit too many people who don't belong here, as evidenced by our high dropout rate.
There are some people who so don't belong here that I'm actually a little insulted they'll be graduating along with me, but you find the same aimless, talentless coasters in any academic program. It's just more galling here because the school is so small you can't avoid them.
The summer academy is a good sample of what courses are like, but I warn you: take a gap year (or two or three) if you can. You'll appreciate the great books better with a little life under your belt.
>>7574018
I'm planning to do post grad so I think SJC would be a good fit for me. Do you guys have time to study other things outside of the curriculum? I'm very interested in linguistics and can self study but I might not have the time.
>>7574018
Also, what is the aid like? is it easy to get merit scholarships? my parents made over 100k a year but about 80k of that is sucked up by private student loans. if they're in bankruptcy does this get factored in?
This guys
>>7574018
here, and not the other anon.
>>7573984
The kids are mostly plebs, by which I mean they're mostly kids. Really, kids straight out of high school aren't ready to take their own learning into their hands seriously, no matter how much they've tricked themselves into thinking they are. You need more than to have read a lot all ready. You need to take the following question seriously: what would my life be like if I really believed this author? And you need to keep doing that for every author. You also need to sincerely believe that you know nothing, than reason has no boundaries, that there is no such thing as "a math person" or "language person" to any important extant, and you need to really believe that you have something to learn from everyone you speak to and everything you do or read. Most kids aren't ready for any of that.
>>7574002
The school has a pretty good track record of putting people into law schools, public service (esp state department), STEM grad programs, and academia. But, again, this is mostly on you. People at ANY college can't neglect networking or avoid the career services office for four years and then bitch and moan that they can't service their debt.
Reported. Not literature? Not /lit/
>>7574034
If you're a organized person, there's time to take serious study groups or form them yourselves, even inviting professors to join. It's not unheard of for them to write letters to grad schools on your behalf detailing your extracurricular study, if they were involved.
There's also a "continuing studies" scholarship to help pay for college courses and credits at other institutions over your summers to shore up requirements at grad school. I had a friend take logic and language classes two summers in a row (we're weak on the analytics here because we go chronologically and stop in the early twentieth century.
>>7574038
The aid is bad, generally. I've never understood it because the endowment is quite big from what I've heard, but then again I'm not an accounted. I have no idea what it takes to run this place. Anyway, students bitching and moaning about cuts to their aid is a commonplace here.
I will say that the FAFSA (which is all they use) does take into account your parents debt. Also, there's an appeals process (you can petition for MORE money) which is generally worth going through. I've heard it gets good results usually. They're probably banking on the hope that a certain portion who really do deserve the money will be too lazy to appeal to get it. Kinda like mail in rebates. Sorry, that was speculation based purely on my cynicism, but you get the drift.
>>7574042
It's one of the few Great Books programs in the US. Or are snobby academics and elitist institutions really not /lit/?
>>7574069
Check sticky. Discussion of literature, not colleges
>>7574078
>the study of literature does not belong in the discussion of literature
>>7573984
Well, they're readers, but that doesn't say much--people who read Fight Club, or John Green, or modern fantasy or sci-fi lit, etc.. The people who read philosophy are hit or miss as people; they're either stuck up their own asses for having read Schopenhauer or Russell in high school, or they're the most intelligent people you'll run into. Too much variation. It's like a big school in miniature. Still cliques and all that.
>>7574002
No, or at least not any more than it would for anyone else with a Liberal Arts degree. It'll usually help you get into Graduate programs, if that's something you're interested in.
>>7574034
Yeah. I helped run a couple of study groups on Platonic dialogues (Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophist, sorta did one on the Statesman), and I took part in a small Persian language study group. I know people who continue to study Latin or German, or who took part in study groups on Heidegger, and such. If you're interested in something, and you find other people who are interested, and you're all willing to put some effort in, then what you're looking for is certainly accomplishable.
>>7574038
Uhh, I'm not really sure. I know it's nee based, and they'll take your parents' situation into account, but I know at least one senior who wasn't able to the last bit of aid necessary for being able to return for his last semester, and he had to start a gofundme page for help.
>>7574089
>but I know at least one senior who wasn't able to the last bit of aid necessary for being able to return for his last semester, and he had to start a gofundme page for help.
Oh god, we're here. Other Johnnies are here. Why do I feel sick to my stomach?
And if it's the same senior we're thinking of... well, fuck that guy. If he really needed that money, the school would have found a way to keep him in. He's in his goddamn eighth semester. They're not monsters. Bureaucratic idiots sometimes, but not monsters.
>>7574085
But the anon is right. A lot of /lit/izens are pissed off from the redditor influx. They are trying to get rid of all the shit posting they see and this thread is one of them. Go to college confidential if you want to discuss college programs.
I have an interview with them in five minutes. Wish me luck.
>>7574097
>Oh god, we're here. Other Johnnies are here. Why do I feel sick to my stomach?
So you've missed all the other fun Johnnie threads so far this year, eh? :^P
I'm only ever here for Plato threads.
>And if it's the same senior we're thinking of... well, fuck that guy. If he really needed that money, the school would have found a way to keep him in. He's in his goddamn eighth semester. They're not monsters. Bureaucratic idiots sometimes, but not monsters.
Oh, I think he's a fine guy! It was what, three thousand I think he needed? And he explored basically every avenue, talked to tutors, admin, his mother put her life savings towards tuition, he's working shit tons. I mean, I've seen people leave for not getting the aid; sometimes it just doesn't happen. I agree it's not malicious, but shit happens and sometimes you almost get fucked pretty hard for it. (If he were to have taken a year off, his aid upon returning would've been slashed down to almost nothing anyway...)
>>7574123
You'll be fine.
>>7571044
Heard it was pretty quality. How do its' graduates fare in getting into Comp. Lit grad programs?
I'm an accepted student. Anything I should know?
>>7574466
What term did you apply to?
>>7574062
>a organized
Come on
>>7574723
If I accept, I would be entering fall of 2016 at the Annapolis campus.
>>7574748
I'm going to St. Johns too. Fall 2016 Annapolis. See you there.
>>7574775
Early entrant, I don't know the exact date. Sorry.
>>7571044
I went to an outdoors ice-cream parlor two or three years back. I'd been looking for nice places to read, and it was as nice a place as any other; I'd taken a few girls there on dates before, one of which I kissed in my car in the ice-cream parlor's parking lot. At the time I was reading, Franny & Zooey, a book of Kafka's short stories, Great Dialogues of Plato; and I was schluffing around two great big dictionaries, so I'd be able to look up words from the books I hadn't understood. I'd gotten a milkshake and had been reading the Kafka book for a little while and before too long an old man sat at my table, licking at an ice-cream cone. He laughed at my stack and asked me which school I went to, and I told him I'd dropped out not three days before. He said I oughta look into St. John's.
Then he started talking about money and things got weird and he left soon thereafter.
What's St. John's like?
>>7573497
they generally cut tuition in half with a grant. I paid about 16,000 for the M.A.
>notable graduate
I went there. Go there for undergrad. It's like a bootcamp to turn aspies into somewhat normal academic people.
>>7575150
Noice
I don't understand why anyone would go there rather than Columbia / U of C
>>7575349
Because SJC's curriculum is a lot different. They're the only university doing the Great Books program the best. Most other universities are horrible in execution or are heavily secular.
bamp
