Is pic related a Veeky Forums college...

That's not at all what he was saying. We cannot just edit the cannon to fit the fantasy that such activist types want to believe. The fact of the matter is that most great works in history, so far, were written by white men - due to material circumstances - and trying to revise that to make a more "inclusive" atmosphere or whatever sets a dangerous precedent. Plus, too, that type of discussion about authorship and privilege can derail discussion about the actual material itself.

I know this is a troll post, but I'm going to respond to the underlying sentiment as though it isn't.

When you choose to spend four years of your life and hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to a school because you were told it has a certain curriculum (OP could go to Cornell instead, if he didn't care about reading good books and talking about them well) it's of vital importance to you that the curriculum is as advertised.

Though not very selective, it's as Veeky Forums a college as you can find in America. I've compared St. John's syllabus to many other lit program syllabi throughout the country, and not even the most prestigious schools can compare. I went to the University of Chicago myself, but I wish I'd have gone to St. John's instead. Unfortunately I didn't hear of it until three years into my degree. The few professors I've heard mention it have had almost nothing but praise for it.

Its a scam, go to state school or Ivy, or full ride

>200k USD to learn how to read books
wew

you're not going to have a good time if this is how you assess colleges

Take as many courses as possible outside of an Ivy then go to an Ivy.

I went to college 2001-05. I have no debt, I am successful and well read.

200k to read books you can get at your local library or on gutenberg is a fucking joke, especially with open ed opportunities.

youtube.com/watch?v=VmRe_fK7pbw

I'm a Marylander and bum around Annapolis sometimes. St. Johns is a pretty comfy campus and the community really likes the students. I glean that they're less rowdy than the folks at the naval academy, or at least they're fewer in number and don't do as much damage as college age kids are wont to do.

Anyways, I toured St. Johns a number of years ago on a field-trip from my high school. What I remember most is that some dude with long hair was lighting up a J in one of the hallways. That probably goes with the territory at schools like this. But in all fairness to the place, my classmates and I got to participate in one of their student-led-tutor-facilitated classes about Antigone. With the right group of people that could be a great way to learn from the western canon.

Echoing the concerns of some other posters here, I would caution you to go and visit for yourself. See if the people attending are really so wrapped up in the identity politics crap that they drag all that baggage into unrelated classes. I graduated from a different college in 2015 and remember that, although there were rumblings of the problems we have now, my school fortunately was unaffected. You really want a school where you can focus on learning, not on vapid facebook controversies and classmates who will give you grief.

Go to Reed?

>tfw grades are only above average
Anyone else know this feeling? I know people who go to Ivy League schools, and I know I'm smarter than them. I've lived a full life, traveled, drifted, learned several languages, acted in a play, worked as a highschool teacher, met people from all over the world, and have read a library's worth of books.

But I was always bored in class and never bothered with doing the crossword puzzles they assigned us as "homework". Now these schools give me 200 words to attempt to prove why I, as a student with an 85% average, am more intelligent than someone with a 95% average.

God its stressful. Reed wouldn't even accept my application because I already applied once (was waitlisted), and don't have any transcripts between when I last applied and now to "prove" my intelligence.

Anyone have experience with this? I'm thinking of just emailing different admissions officers directly and begging them to consider me, but I don't know if this will work.

>Also be aware there is definitely a covert theistic slant
Maybe on the part of some very particular tutors (what we call professors), but largely, no, that's not true. More than a few of the faculty are atheists or atheistic tending agnostics.

The draw to attend a prestigious school can be great, but when you get down to it every college is more alike than different. You want to reach for those places for sure, because they are favorable in terms of post-graduate employment results. But even if you don't get admitted there, you can still get much the same experience: memorable professors, smart classmates with whom you make fast friends, annoying administrators making life difficult for you, and a bewildering number of people who will take for granted what you have striven for in attending. Every school will offer those things. Wherever you go, it's going to be on you to make the most of what will be there. And it's nothing that you haven't done before, because you've already read lots of quality books and have learned many things. More of the same!

And really the worst thing to get down about is the admissions process. It's all advertising smoke-and-mirrors and admissions departments have to maintain the illusion that they hold the keys to a perfect kingdom, or else people stop applying. The performance comes down hardest on the applicants themselves, but once you're admitted to one place or another, you quickly see college for what it is and come to pity the people being sold a fantasy by supercilious admissions employees with classmate tour guides for helpers. After graduation, you start pitying the tour guides because they inevitably go on to work for admissions!

From your post I think you have a healthy attitude toward life, for what it's worth. Carry that to school with you and you'll learn a lot more than the people who are trapped in the cult of success, chasing metrics all their waking hours. It really does start to get better when you can talk about ideas rather than do crosswords and worksheets all day.

T. user

honestly, it doesnt matter where you go. it depends on what classes you take and what you do with your education. one professor at harvard isn't so different from one at a uc. the tuition is what is killer, especially if you're talking about a bachelor's.

Why does everyone think you're going to be paying the tag price for this school? They give out great financial aid awards. My parents combined make $100k a year and I'm receiving $40k a year in grant money. If any of you pay your own taxes, you're able to go to the school for free.

Thanks user, it's really encouraging to hear that, I guess I am just stressing out about nothing.

user, just go to Baylor University and get their Great Texts of the Western Tradition degree.

Hey bud, I was in a similar boat. Despite getting a nearly perfect SAT score and having lots of creative ability, I got a 3.0 in high school and was consequently rejected or waitlisted at 7/8 of the schools I applied to.
It took quite a while for me to turn things around, ie. develop study habits and find a field of study that excites me, but after doing so, I was accepted as a transfer applicant to several great schools, went to one, and now things are pretty great.
You should go to St. John's though; I wish I had. Grad schools and law school love it and it's a fantastic place.

I just applied there desu.
Full ride from that GI bill.

What if user doesn't want to get raped?

We all have to make sacrifices for our art.

Which were you accepted to?

I thought the GI bill only covers a max of like 20k a year?

Skidmore

St.John's is a yellow ribbon school.
They reach an agreement with the VA where they match the VA contribution and the VA will split the difference.
So I'm only left with housing, which is covered by like 2100 a month through the bill. Plus I've invested my entire time in the army so I've got passive income of like 1k a month.
It's a dank deal. TY for paying your taxes citizen.

That's a sweet deal friend, congratulations

>Already went to college, 31 years old now
>Got a degree in engineering and started working with an energy company several years ago
>Company did well. Really well. Sold my shares and now have enough that if I live frugally I don't have to work for the rest of my life.
>Always wished I could have gone to a school like St. Johns or Hillsdale college and sit in comfy reading rooms with fireplaces blazing while I discuss the great works of western civilization with my peers.

What do lit? Do I just retake the SAT and pretend I don't have a degree?

>tfw on a full ride to Colby
gonna be fun lads. Lots of reading will be done, considering that it will be freezing cold outside much of the time.

Do Americans really pay 200k to read books?

If I had to pay that much money I'd rather inherit my father's failing business...

t. Law-student at free public school in Brazil

If you're actually intelligent and have good grades as well you can almost certainly get scholarships that cover most of your schooling. I didn't pay a single cent of tuition and had most of my housing/books etc paid for by a scholarship the school used to recruit me there. I graduated with no debt because my family was able to help with the remainder like buying food which they had saved for for years anyways so it wasn't a big burden.

The people you hear whining and bitching about their 200k of debt made horrible decisions.

I did university in Canada where it costs $8k/yr at the top unis and the government just loans you the money. A surprisingly large number of Americans go to Canada for university for that reason.

Now I'm at a university in the States and it really is interesting to see how the cost segregates things by class. There are a lot of "lesser"/state schools in the town I'm in, and there is a clear sense that the big famous private university is a different set, more for kids from rich families, the kinds of kids who went to expensive private high schools schools.

Coming from my Canadian experience, where I already felt stifled by the ratio of rich assholes even at the more accessible big university I went to, it's fucking stifling. I hear about "only go to private unis if you get a free ride!" a lot, but 90% of the people here seem to be funded by their parents at least partially. The class divide seems a lot starker here as a result.

went on a academic trip to europe. st. johns professor was in the (small) group. she was a fucking pretentious bitch.

>Big famous private university
>Surprised that there is a class divide between it and other schools

McGill graduates everyone.

No, I went to UofT. The big class divide school is the one in the states.

I'm just messing around. I work with a guy (and we happen to work at a big famous private university in a city with numerous lesser schools) that did a few years at McGill and seems to somehow believe that the experience has imbued him with culture and worldliness the likes of which we poor Americans could never understand. He's comes across as a total douche.

The class divide is something I completely understand though. My family as a whole is really pretty poor but I was able to get all of my schooling paid for and now I'm in an MSTP program (combined MD and PhD) which is all paid for by the NIH. Some of my peers come from a lap of luxury the likes of which I can hardly comprehend. Trust fund kids. Who needs em?

UofT and McGill people often talk shit back and forth, but I'm not at all a "UofT nationalist" or anything." Personally I think UofT was a fucking joke, just an administration with an image problem, and a dying academics programme tacked on as an afterthought.

But McGill has a SERIOUS inferiority complex, from everything I've ever seen of it and its students. They are all huge cunts for some weird reason. That's what you get for hanging around the frogs, I guess. Very French kind of resentment.

>My family as a whole is really pretty poor but I was able to get all of my schooling paid
Kudos, dude. Same situation here. That level of openness definitely exists in our society, which is great. I just wish it weren't undermined by the system being geared toward people who had the benefit of helicopter parents and connections.

Actually, I just kind of wish that the lower and middle classes were palpably shown to what extent the rich are out-competing them economically every generation by BEING good helicopter parents, by doing the research to understand what it takes to get your damn kids into Harvard, making sure the kid takes the SATs five times, etc. The door is open but mostly only upper middle class spoiled brats walk through it.

>Trust fund kids
No kidding. That's my problem with the rich set: They do come from a world where their parents greased the wheels for them every step of the way. They look at their "Entry Into The Elite!" as a matter of course, where a steady-as-she-goes pace is fine. You're elite, you're at an elite institution, so it's almost tautological that you should simply do what the institution prescribes, no more and no less.

It's very difficult to find people here who view the course requirements and such as the bare minimum, really passionate types who are genuinely undergoing a transformation into a scholar rather than just becoming the "Scholar" subvariant of trust fund babby as an acceptable vocation.

Yeah place is Veeky Forums as FUCK.
But it's small and a lot of people are introverts. My advice is to hit up the other normies there and hit up D.C. on the weekend.
You'll experience more that way.

>St. John's College is a private liberal arts college known for its distinctive curriculum centered on reading and discussing the Great Books of Western Civilization.

How is that different from any other liberal art college? Asking seriously.

I assume it means that they don't teach any normal subjects like economics, history, politics, law, linguistics, etc. but instead just choose a bunch of "western cannon" books and group them ttogether then come up with courses making sure you've read them.

Just got accepted to SJC for the January semester. Very excited for it.

For those who noticed the price tag, the avg financial aid package is $40K/Year. This is without any external scholarships. Avg cost of attendance is $60K/Year (tuition + room & board).

I was in the same boat as you user. Your essay to St. John's is what truly determines your admission. So write the best essay you have written thus far in your life and you will get accepted. There is a 400 word minimum, and no maximum.

dont like 80% of people get accepted?
do you have to vomit and shit all over the essay to not get accepted?

It's obviously racist, too white and way too male

It has really low application numbers due to high cost and specialization. So I wouldn't read into the acceptance rate too much.

They have the Great Books Program. What do you think?

Wait, wait, are you telling me that a catholic college named after St. John has a theistic bias?!

I give you a little hint.

In Europe you can go to Uni for free, you even have plenty of benefits and you get a lot of free money, still, people don't flock to liberal arts.
You have to pay 200k for something people elsewhere get for free and it does not even grant you a good job. 200k, enough money to live your entire life happily in some parts of the world, enough to buy you a big house, and you want to use it to "read books" and because of the "culture of writing".

But go ahead and ask other people who are willing to spend a small fortune for a "culture of writing".

Apart from some British degrees European degrees are literally worthless though, most aren't even recognized as valid in America.

>most aren't even recognized as valid in America.
You have to recognize most as valid as part of various reciprocal agreements. And Scotland is in Britain, and they do cheap as free (unless you're from elsewhere in the UK).

>this is how plebs justify their shit schools

Tell that to Australia who would laugh you out the room if you turned up with a German trade degree.

>German trade degree
I'm not even sure what that would be. If you mean a degree from a technical university, they must have to recognize them now. If you mean being in a trade, then right now they'd only have to move to the UK and get the relevant card (although obv that might be ending) and then move.

Are you REALLY so gullible as to believe that something is better just because you pay more money?

Tell me, how do you think a European University is different from an American one? Are your books made of gold strains and therefore better? We all learn the same stuff. The math is not different over there and the books you read don't magically change in content.

>Apart from some British degrees European degrees are literally worthless though, most aren't even recognized as valid in America.
"European degrees" don't mean anything. Europe is 400 million people in 28 countries. Some country like Germany, France, the UK, Ireland, the Netherland and Danemark have all the degrees from their public universities recognized in the U.S. (with exceptions like for med school).

Are you really going to pretend like there isn't a massive difference in the quality between American and Mainland European universities? there isn't even a single French university in the top 50, even ENS is only 54.

>(you)

ITT: Europhiles get all their information from Reddit

Ever wondered why you don't see Swedes complaining about the massive debt they get themselves into going to university? Because It's embarrassing having a $30k degree and not being able to find even menial employment.

>Muh rankings
Again, tell me what you learned that others could not learn.

America is a world power that attracts the most successful people from around the world and the best students want to get into the best universities plus they get it all payed for. So you end up with those high ranking universities full of successful people. This is, however, not correlated to what you learn or the "quality of education".
Just because you move into a rich neighbourhood you don't become rich yourself.

In Europe it simply more evenly distributed, people decide not on the "quality" of the university but if it is close to home or which town is close by.

Honestly, just tell me one thing you learned that you could not have learned at a cheaper university or in Europe.

My mother has worked in higher ed for the better part of her life and this is exactly what she told me too back when I was applying to colleges and she found out I had talked to a St. John's rep.
Seeing OP juxtaposing it with Williams, Amherst, and Cornell almost made me spit my drink. I'm no altruist but I sincerely hope OP doesn't give up an education at one of those schools for a scam.

>Ever wondered why you don't see Swedes complaining about the massive debt they get themselves into going to university?
Because, as that chart shows, they have no debt.

European education detected

That chart has nothing to do with debt.

It may not state it directly, but that chart is very much to do with debt.

>they have no debt
uwotm8

They have the highest in Europe.

Williams grad here. I wish I had gone to St. John's instead.

And Swedish graduates have the highest debt-to-income ratios of any group of students in the developed world.

Although to be fair their universities are significantly generally better than the European average.

Williams is consistently rated #1 Liberal Arts college in the United States and has a 16.8% acceptance rate. I know the grass is always greener but if you could re-do your life would you seriously throw that away for a more enjoyable college experience?
I'm in my final year at Oxford currently. The past few years would have been infinitely better for me had I gone to a normal NE liberal arts school like many college applicants from my state, but in the end I can't imagine trading the opportunity I have been given for that.

What are you trying to say with you graph?
You made no argument whatsoever. The graph only shows that education is free here and that a lot of people benefit from public loans.

Is this what money gets you? Years of paying to learn to think and you can't even defend why you spent a small fortune?

How full are your lectures Veeky Forums?

Pic related: this would be considered empty here.

I don't think so. The curriculum has a serious lack of insight, and doesn't have a clear purpose. What's the point to go there? Reading legal cases, a Greek physicist, Jonathan Swift, a translation of Gustave Flaubert and William Shakespeare, or listening to J. S. Bach won't lead anywhere. You won't be cultured, merely above the average, because you have no definite knowledge. You would learn very little of anything, and that will most likely underqualifies you whenever a person has an amateur background on a precise field. You will be clueless whenever a genuine music-lover will talk endlessly about subtleties of Joseph Haydn, and composers you have never heard of; you may feel the same when a random antique enthusiast will correct the superficial understanding you have of Greek migration history.

The point is, you will pay $200,000 to get general culture, which is by definition something we should naturally all acquire regardless of our career and education, ideally done in school. You should be as specialized as possible, address the true passion you have, and cultivate it outside of college as well. Do you like Roman history? Then please enroll in a relevant degree in France or Italy, get twelve hours a week of Latin and Greek, an extensive coverage of this whole era, read and translate a large number of authors, playwrights and poets. I graduated in business engineering a couple of years ago, and I think I've pretty much the same education a fresh undergraduate from St. John's College has, provided he kept with the program. Anybody who has a decent interest in literature and reading should have done half of the reading list by his thirties, on the side and out of enthusiasm.

This is unrelated but I also dislike the very mood of that place. To call a professor a “tutor”, have an horizontal pedagogy, streamline the authority, discuss in a “seminar”, within a “group” rather than getting taught ex cathedra or to disrupt the traditional learning process seem to me like a very liberal and arguable method to acquire a solid, proper knowledge. Also, writing and discussing play a laughable role in the program. I consider it is impertinent and exceedingly bold to assume a freshman has enough education so his opinion matters, and few colleges expect you to seriously disclose it in your production within the first years. Anyway, you're free to pursue any cursus I want.

I'll be a JF too see ya there mate

kek

You want to know the difference between somebody that graduated from St. John's and somebody that graduated from Claude Bernard? tenureship, respect and grant money.

If your deepest desire is to get “tenureship, respect and grant money”, a rational choice would have been to enroll in financial mathematics or IT engineering or quantiative analysis. Or course, a more realistic one would be to attend none, since you will never get neither a tenure, respect or money with such a weak mindset.

SJCA '19 here

AMA

It's easy to dismiss the curriculum as a joke but I saw a guy list the courses he took at MIT and he did cs and only took intro to algorithms in his fourth year. In America the universities simply leach money from you.

I went to the nearest university to me without thinking and it is ranked 140 to 160 in the world I.e., low quality courses with barely any content. I feel very cheated even though I paid nothing. The university name is like a dunce cap

this is super correct but most of Veeky Forums lacks the perspective to understand

trust me st johns carries VERY little weight in american higher academia

How autistic is everyone?

not much more than at a normal college, but there's def a lot more pseudointellectualism

See you in a year famalam. ;^)

pls don't start smoking it's bad for you

American undergraduate education is regarded as a creche for adults, US unis prefer European undergrads for research degree instakes

I'm the guy coming on the GI bill. You can thank the army for that habit.
In all seriousness, I am curious about one thing. How are Grad school prospecting coming out? I'm pulling for a law degree or buisness, and St. John's looked like the best undergrad school I could go to for it.

Pro-tip: It's ironic you choose the literal only example that's the exception, to validate a med degree all you have to do is pass a relativity easy exam.

It's much more difficult for humanity degrees (we're on Veeky Forums after all); getting validation for a European political science/history/Cultural studies etc. unless your extensively published in peer-reviewed journals is basically impossible.

You should always do your Master/PHD in the country you intend to work in for your entire life, your BSc doesn't matter senpai.

>this is what euros tell themselves

look at the stats buddy. it's all americans and asians.

Enjoy paying $40,000 per year while I get a stipend at your colleges grad school

i pay $60k a year actually, and i get around $600k a year from interest on my assets, which still leaves over 500k for dicking around. cheers buddy.

This is the most bizarre way ive ever seen someone conclude an internet argument

My textbook uses the second statement, isn't this bad English?
>In the dark there is a cat and some rats.
>In the dark there are a cat and some rats

...

The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in fact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of the sciences have increased enormously, and therewith also the probability that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner, or will attach himself somewhere and "specialize" so that he will no longer attain to his elevation, that is to say, to his superspection, his circumspection, and his DESPECTION. Or he gets aloft too late, when the best of his maturity and strength is past ... so that his view, his general estimate of things, is no longer of much importance. It is perhaps just the refinement of his intellectual conscience that makes him hesitate ... he dreads the temptation to become a dilettante, a millepede, a milleantenna, he knows too well that as a discerner, one who has lost his self-respect no longer commands, no longer LEADS ... This is in the last instance a question of taste, if it has not really been a question of conscience. To double once more the philosopher's difficulties, there is also the fact that he demands from himself a verdict, a Yea or Nay, not concerning science, but concerning life and the worth of life ... the philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated man; and even yet when one hears anybody praised, because he lives "wisely," or "as a philosopher," it hardly means anything more than "prudently and apart." Wisdom: that seems to the populace to be a kind of flight, a means and artifice for withdrawing successfully from a bad game; but the GENUINE philosopher ... lives "unphilosophically" and "unwisely," above all, IMPRUDENTLY, and feels the obligation and burden of a hundred attempts and temptations of life--he risks HIMSELF constantly, he plays THIS bad game.

>78% acceptance rate

I can't imagine that it's any good. You want 20% max.