Landmark College — Local services in Putney

You wrote a review for Landmark College 32 minutes ago 1.0 star rating 8/8/2017 I only have 5 weeks of experience at this campus, but i've seen quite enough.

The classes are pretty worthless. If you could graduate high school, you're probably above the bar for this college. They don't really teach you any ways to apply what you "learn". They teach you concepts we've all heard of, and talk about why they're important, but that's about it.

The professors are almost all nice, but most seem pretty clueless too. There's been hardly any homework at all, and very, very few tests. To some of you, this may seem a good thing, but for people who want to actually improve themselves to move on to a decent college, this campus fails to deliver on it's promises. It doesn't help LD students, it coddles them and convinces their parents they can't succeed anywhere else.

The classes here will only be satisfying for you if you have below a 6th grade reading/writing level.

The campus is horrendously boring. One game room with limited games, one expensive cafe only open until midnight. Quiet hours start at 9pm sunday-thursday, and for friday and saturday, it's pushed back to 11pm. Wow!

The town is also equally boring. I was lucky enough to have a car, but really, there's not much around.

I only stayed in Frost Hall, but it was pretty terrible. Too hot, and if you don't leave your windows open 24/7, it starts to smell horrendous. Even for those of us here with decent hygiene, it can get bad leaving the window closed for one day. For the students who stay locked in their room, never shower or do their laundry, the smell can't be contained by their door. Certain ends of the hallway are disgusting.

There are no community kitchens, except in the small dorms reserved for seniors. That means your only real options for food are the dining hall with very limited hours, and the expensive cafe that's only open until midnight. Nothing in the common areas except a single tv.

The attempts at campus events are laughable. The most recent one I noticed was "Cereal and cartoons night" in which they invited us down to the common area to eat cereal and watch cartoons. Sometimes they have small, boring campfires with nothing to do but eat marshmallows and listen to that one group loudly talk about D&D or whatever.

Campus security are unnecessarily aggressive and incompetent. They refused me the right to go to the bathroom while I was locked in a room and being interrogated for a violation they couldn't prove I committed. Then they fined me $100 because some drunk people said I was with them off-campus. The quiet hours are enforced strictly. Sometimes they tell us to quiet down before quiet hours even start.

The staff aren't interested in helping anyone. The RD spits chewing tobacco 24/7, even while giving us an hour long lecture about how great he is. Pretty...

Looked pretty extensively @ Landmark (visited/toured the campus multiple times and had an admissions office interview), but didn't outright accept my acceptance to the college in the end, although I ❤️ the Putney area.

Was MUCH more interested in both Bennington & Marlboro (both of which were colleges I did accept my acceptances to), when it came to my Southern Vermont college choices which were more of an "overall fit" for me. Landmark does have a nice campus in a BEAUTIFUL setting though. My parent's farm/vacation home was about a 25-minute drive away from the campus in heavily rural South Newfane.

Therefore, I would have been FINE going to college in Putney. I also did a couple of Summer Programs at the Putney School growing up.

I also GREATLY admired Landmark's commitment to teaching students who learned differently, and being numerically Dyslexic (Dyscalculia) myself, I instinctively understood how Landmark was academically structured and that it was geared towards students who had similar learning disabilities to mine, but Hampshire College (a 90-minute drive away down in Amherst, MA) was ultimately where I ended up attending college. Both because it was the best "complete fit" for me academically/socially back when I was entering college, and because of the collective academic resources and strengths of the Five-College Consortium, which Landmark unfortunately didn't have the strength of. It was ultimately the same reason I also didn't choose Bennington, Marlboro or Goddard (up in Plainfield, VT) colleges over Hampshire in the end either.

And while Hampshire didn't espouse the same EXACT commitment to teaching students who learned differently that Landmark does, it does offer extensive academic support resources both on it's own campus, as well as throughout the resources of the other four campuses in the Five-College Consortium for students who are "differently-abled" learners, so there was adequate academic support there for me.

HOWEVER, Landmark's library materials and resources on Learning Disabilities and other related-conditions to LD's is UNPARALLELED. I did find that impressive & did a LOT of reading there. In fact, back when I was first diagnosed with Dyscalculia in the early 80's, my parents (who were NYC academics that taught in the CUNY system at Brooklyn College) did a lot of THEIR own research at Landmark's Library actually to help educate both themselves and our family about my Dyscalculia.

Landmark's cool, 😎 it just wasn't the overall "right fit" college for me; but I did heavily...

Landmark College is a small and expensive private liberal arts college in a rural Vermont town. I really love the town of Putney. I like exploring Putney by foot and bike, going to the Farmer's Market, having breakfast at the diner, or getting a creemee at Hidden Springs Maple. I think Landmark would benefit from creating closer connections to the local community as it can feel like an isolated bubble at times.

The most valuable thing at Landmark to me is the community of neurodiverse students as well as the diversity of social activities, events, and trips offered. The rec department is unexpectedly wonderful and provides many oppurtunites for outdoor excursions including activities such as hiking, rock climbing, and white water rafting.

My academic experience has been mixed. There are good professors and bad professors. You have very few choices when it comes to classes and degree programs. It can feel very limiting.

They sell themselves on having academics catered to neurodivergent students, but in my experience it's not much better than other colleges I have been at. I transferred to Landmark College after taking classes at the University of Vermont and the Community College of Vermont for two years and have found the professors there kind, flexible, and accommodating. There is nothing special about the tutoring center as I am sure larger colleges have similar resources.

Landmark doesn't have any sort of disability or accessibility services, which makes it difficult if you are trying to advocate for something specific. They just have a generic form you fill out for any accommodation and don't provide additional human support. They claim that "anything you need is built in already."

Overall, it's an OK school that tries to sell itself on the gimmick of being neurodiversity-friendly, but the neurodiversity-friendly atmosphere is moreso created by the population of students rather than the supports here. It's worth noting that Landmark is incentivized to keep its students there and make students believe that traditional colleges are inherently different, more challenging, and less friendly, but I think there are traditional colleges out there that can provide an experience similar to Landmark.

In summary, I truly believe Landmark is a place worth trying if you have serious concerns about success in a traditional college setting despite its flaws. I don't think it's a particularly good or bad school. At the end of the day, your experience here is what...