<p>Alternative collegesly adhere to a unique academic pedagogy. These colleges can offer unlimited academic freedom, or can have pre-prescribed schedules. What distinguishes them are their unique academic programs.</p>
<p>This list is intended to be a starting point for students who want to explore alternative colleges. Feel free to suggest a college - this list is a work in progress.</p>
<p>Antioch College: Antioch.edu
Where: Yellow Springs, Ohio
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Antioch college is a tiny college of about 200 students, founded in 1850 by educational reformer Horace Mann. Through ‘cooperative education’, students combine work experience with classroom learning. The student spends a total of 4, 12-week semesters working (and receiving academic credit) as employees for local, national, or international employees. A large emphasis is placed on democracy within both the classroom and the larger institution.</p>
<p>Bard College: Bard.edu
Where: Annandale, New York.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Bard College is a liberal arts college set on a bluff just above the Hudson River. Despite fears that it is growing more mainstream under the tenure of President Leon Botstein, Bard College continues to have a unique pedagogy. Before the beginning of Freshmen year, students participate in a 3-week language and thinking program, meant to hone their skills in, well, language and thinking. Every student is also required to ‘moderate’ into a major when they enter they enter the upper college, instead of simply declaring one. In their senior year, students round off their studies by completing a mandatory senior thesis in a topic of their interest.</p>
<p>Berea College: Berea.edu
Where it is: Berea, Kentucky.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Berea College is a school for low-income students that would normally require financial aid. All students admitted to Berea receive free tuition (though not Room & Board) for 4 years. Under a work-study program, students work on campus 10 hours or more per week to help finance their education. </p>
<p>Bennington College: Bennington.edu
Where it is: Bennington, Vermont.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Bennington College is a small liberal arts school with one of the lowest population densities for any school in the US: 700 students are given 440 acres of Vermont’s Forest to explore. This tends to attract types who are considered ‘crunchy’ or ‘granola’ by their more mainstream peers. Academics at Bennington are centered around the student-focused ‘Plan’ process, where students work with advisors to design their own, unique curriculum that fits their goals. More information on the Plan process can be found on Bennington’s website. </p>
<p>College of the Atlantic: Coa.edu
Where it is: Bar Harbor, Maine.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: The College of the Atlantic only offers one degree: Human Ecology. The learning is hugely interdisciplinary, with a focus on connecting environmental issues to problems in other areas, like art history and philosophy. Students have the freedom to propose and complete projects as part of the curriculum - but they also are required to complete a senior thesis and a human ecology essay. </p>
<p>Deep Springs College: Deepsprings.edu
Where it is: Deep Springs, California.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Does working on a ranch for twenty hours a week in sweltering California heat sound fun to you? If so, Deep Springs College might be for you. Around 25 undergraduates attend this tiny college, where they work, study, eat, sleep, and breathe together for two years. After they complete their education at Deep Springs, many of them go off to prestigious institutions like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, where they round off their undergraduate education.</p>
<p>Evergreen State College: Evergreen.edu
Where it is: Olympia, Washington.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Evergreen State Colleges is one of the larger alternatives - around 4,000 undergraduates go here. Instead of taking multiple courses over a semester, academics are set up into quarters, where students choose one ‘program’ which they focus on for a third of the academic year. Sometimes, these programs will run over 2 to 3 quarters, allowing students to immerse themselves further in the material. </p>
<p>Hampshire College: Hampshire.edu
Where it is: Amherst, Massachusetts.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Hampshire college is not merely an experimental college - it is also an experimenting college, which means that its curriculum is progressive and will likely continue to change. Hampshire aims to create creative, self-motivated problem solvers. A student without both self-discipline and self-motivation will likely not succeed at Hampshire, which gives students nearly un-paralleled freedom. A student’s academic life at Hampshire is set up into three ‘divisions’. In the first division, students take a broad range of courses in five ‘schools of thought’. In Division two, students narrow in on areas of academic interest, and complete a concentration in that interest. In the third division, students round off their education with a major, year-long project, often supplemented with a few courses. </p>
<p>Goddard College: Goddard.edu
Where it is: Plainsfield, Vermont.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: Founded as a college in 1938, Goddard was one of the first truly alternative colleges, and it certainly hasn’t become any more mainstream over the years. When a student is admitted to Goddard, they can only be expected to visit campus only eight days or so every six months - but when they do, they spend those eight days in an intensive academic environment, where professors lecture from nearly dawn to dusk. When they’re not on the Goddard campus, students are expected to independently study and send in a packet of materials every three weeks to a faculty mentor. </p>
<p>New College of Florida: Ncf.edu
Where it is: Sarasota, Florida.
What it is, and why it’s alternative: The New College of Florida is one of a handful of public liberal arts schools, which means that its tuition is much cheaper than many of its peers, like Reed and Hampshire. The college is dedicated to a life of the mind, and the intellectual environment here is often described as ‘intense’ and ‘rigorous’. Students here don’t receive grades, but instead are given narrative evaluations, where a professor provides an in-depth review of a student’s work. During January, students complete an independent research project, intern, or do lab work. Like Bard, Reed, and Hampshire, students cap off their academic system with a required senior thesis.</p>
<p>Reed College: Reed.edu
Where it is: Portland, Oregon.
What is is, and why it’s alternative: Although Reed is certainly one of the alternative colleges, students here don’t have the same academic freedom that many of their peers do. At Reed, students are required to take courses across a variety of distribution requirements, along with a required class in Western Civilization called “Hum 110”. The college is often described as one of the most academically intense in the United States - despite taking in students that rival those at the top liberal arts colleges, the average GPA hovers around a 3.0. To enter into their major, students have to sit for qualifying exams that often take upwards of 3 hours - and after they do, they need to complete a senior thesis that can run into the hundreds of pages. </p>