St. John's College — Local services in Santa Fe

OK, full disclosure, I'm a Johnnie.

I've visited over !00 colleges over the last three years in my job an independent college counselor, and I've seen some wonderful schools. With the possible exceptions of Hampshire, Evergreen State, New College (Florida) Deep Springs, Marlboro, and Shimer there is simply no place in America that offers so radically wonderful an education dedicated to the life of the mind as St John's. (I'm excluding schools such as Reed and Whitman and Pomona and Grinnell as wonderful but regular liberal arts colleges.) These schools, each in its own distinctive way, are St John's equals. It has no superior. It is a intellectual's dream come true. Loren Pope is right.

I started in the Graduate Institute and stayed for the undergraduate, dropping my acceptance to work on a Ph.D. in Elizabethan Studies at University of Washington in order to stay at St John's to get a second BA. Yes, it's that special. I had found my self sitting on the edge of my bed crying at the thought I was going to have to leave this place where I had found what I had always thought a college education would be to pursue my doctorate. So I didn't . And no, I am not easily given to tears.

If you love to read, if you want to figure out the symbiotic intersections of geometry, philosophy, music, physics, politics, rhetoric, literature, religion and astronomy (among other disciplines) in small group discussions with only full professors and 'the big books' of the Western cannon (no text books) then this is the place for you. And it is unique. No other school, none, trusts its students to play with the big boys, and demands that they do, as St John's does. Period. End of story. But you'd better love to...

Here's something really special, and a student experience unlike any other in American higher education. Here you will study the classical liberal arts and sciences from primary sources - from the great minds who discovered, wrote, and thought them. It is an intense and exhilarating experience that brings this small community together into close camaraderie. There are two locations - this one and the other in Annapolis, Maryland (students can study in either location, and can travel and transfer between the two). Think of it as one college with two campuses. I prefer this location because of the geographic diversity, the outdoor activities it supports and the open space it affords students to think BIG. It is truly a lovely setting, and Santa Fe is a large enough city to offer interesting cultural diversions. It's a small college, and the focus is almost entirely on the academic experience, so it's not for everyone. If you're considering a liberal arts college, do yourself a favor and visit this small and incredibly interesting...

I attended the freshman year there. As long as I can remember I have always tried to tackle the profound in religion, philosophy and literature. If these depths can truly be plumed outside of a divine epiphany this would be the place to do it. Not only are you studying the most outstanding literary works of the western world with truly outstanding scholars you are surrounded by a marvelous landscape. Each evening in the dining room you witness as the sun go down over the Sangre de Cristo mountain range on the horizon.

My attempts to plumb these depths were vapid and vacuous until sometime later I stumbled upon Jesus on the way, who is indeed profundity itself.

This school has all that serious scholarship can offer in all the most serious of implications within a liberal arts context.

To top it off: it is located just a few miles away from the Pecos Wilderness Area where you can backpack and hike to the nth degree, dismiss the folly of mankind's great thinkers and contemplate the Divine in HIs...