My second child has graduated from SJC with an exceptional education. I was disappointed that the college allowed him to share a dorm with his girlfriend, though. This does not seem appropriate. read more

This school is fantastic! My son is in his second year there. This school allows for a progressive thinker, and also allows the intellectual individual a place to thrive and grow. A very forward thinking type of education that is sound in literature but also teaches life skills so that one can evolve unto their journey of self discovery with confidence, skill and a solid education. I highly recommend this amazing place of education, the arts, small numbers, and beautiful setting. It does not have that "party" vibe, but it is definitely unique in the most wonderful way. read more

You learn at St. Johns by studying the Great Books. Besides the full degree programs, there are summer activities that are targeted to folks who want to study for a few weeks in this unique fashion and in this special place. Someday..... read more

If it weren't for St. John's, I probably wouldn't have gone to college. I started off by visiting the Annapolis campus (I'm from Pennsylvania), and sat in on some classes. I immediately decided to attend, but thought that I'd try out the Santa Fe campus. The college is outside of town in the foothills, so you get a secluded "bubble" feel when you're there. But town is close enough so that you can go get amazing food and drink and partake in all the local festivities. Campus is beautiful and was a wonderful home to me for 4 years. I'm kind of a people-person, too, so I feel like my graduating class of what, 69 students? became another family to me. The classes were extremely rigorous and it was challenging to just keep up with all the reading assignments. In high school, I skipped school all the time because I thought that it was unimportant and uninteresting. I am pretty sure that I can count on one hand the times that I missed a class at St. John's. If that doesn't say something about the quality and interest level of the classes, I don't know what would. As for getting a career out of St. John's, it IS a LIBERAL ARTS college. The college doesn't train you with a particular set of skills that directly apply to any career, but it sure does prepare you for whatever you'd like to do afterwards. It gives you confidence that you can think things through on your own and also that you can talk to people about important philosophical ideas. It allows you to develop more into the person you want to be, through exploring what people think of as knowledge, and allowing you to investigate what your life should be, in general. I highly recommend this college to anyone who wishes to examine "what we think we know" and "why we think this." I'm not going to say that it changed my life, but I will say that it allowed me to gain the confidence that I needed to be and think for myself on a whole new level. read more

One day people will make college decisions solely off the wisdom of Yelp. I'm calling it now. And on that note, I wanna be in the Web 2.0 history books. Me! Me! (It's ironic see? Cuz this program is about as pretentiously archaic as you can get. Go check out the laboratory classrooms. Go ahead. Go see technology). Anyway, by now I'm sure you've looked through the material. The school is weird. Beautifully fantastically insane. You will lose your mind. I'd tell you how to take that but I can't. Orgasmically lose your mind, or muttering alone at 3am in a side room of the library lose your mind. Most likely you will do both. Maybe they'll even happen at the same time. How's your bipolar? You're young, you're impressionable try it out now. But no, seriously I don't mean to scare you. Go hold hands with Aristotle and play with the thinkers. They're fun. Sometimes they love you. Sometimes you love them. There's a koi pond. If you're just reading this review to find out about the bookstore. Yeah, it's small and condensed for full flavor. Don't make your decision based on this review. That would be a terrible terrible idea. Go chat with the maybe socially inept students. It's the only way. Drink lots of water. Santa Fe sucks balls. It's only a fact. But your life may begin here. I think that happens sometimes and people do great, utterly fantastical things. read more

A beautiful campus just outside a beautiful small town, St. Johns is a great place for the many summer workshops and schools that SFI and other institutions hold here. The dorms are dorms, but except for the shared bathrooms they are not that bad. It's remote which makes it hard to get a cell phone signal or get anywhere in town (there is limited bus access). There is a coffee stand in there, but it closes very early. The good aspects are the trails straight from campus up the surrounding hills which are nice in the evenings or weekends...or a morning run. With a bicycle it is easily accessible to both the downtown areas and the more pedestrian suburban amenities like a grocery store and chain stores. The surrounding houses and natural areas are amazing to look at and its secluded nature does foster a stronger cohesion among the people there. The eduction of the university itself is based on the great books collection. This is great if you want to get a 100+ year obsolete education and then work in customer service. Around half the students who go here don't graduate, and the ones that do graduate aren't trained to do anything...not even pursue a serious graduate school education. And at $40,000 a year to sit around reading and discussing books that everybody already knows you should read anyway (that's why they are known as the great books collection) it doesn't seem like a good choice for anybody besides the independently wealthy who never need to work ever in their lives but want to get a well-rounded background for wine parties and yacht christenings. So, it's nice place to visit but I wouldn't recommend studying there. read more

Now, I love me some St. John's College and proudly call my self a Johnnie (which means I went there.) But I really, really have to worry about you if you're yelping your potential college. But hey, whatever works right? Eric B. is right, you do study the great books at St. John's. Its also a school run entirely in discussion based classes. It's also super small and really quite a lot of fun. Summer classics, the summer program he mentioned, is targeted toward the post-college set, but I've heard it can be quite enjoyable. I recommend if you're interested in St. John's that you visit the campus and the college at: www.stjohnscollege.edu. Before signing off, I'd like to mention that the college has a rockstar bookstore. Since everyone is reading the classics, you can find almost anything from Shakespeare to Montesquieu there. Most foreign texts come from a variety of translators, and just grab someone to recommend the best translator if you aren't sure. Also if you find yourself in Santa Fe missing things like comic books, ramen noodles or sketch paper, the St. John's College bookstore has got you covered. read more

Awesome, unusual bookstore for intellectual types. If that's your thing, you'll love this place. As with a typical college bookstore, they have the classes for the semester with all their books and materials available. Plus lots of material on the classics/traditional education: classics, history, literature, "classic" sciences, philosophy, languages, etc. Tiny and unusual kids section. They have stuff here that you've likely never seen before -- like Harry Potter in Latin, or kids books in Latin and Greek. They're also the college shop, so they have t-shirts, postcards, snacks etc. read more

Update 2019 from my old review of St Johns still stands. It's a pretentious school that doesn't offer much in terms of education. Most of the students I went to school with at St Johns a few years ago don't have good jobs. Of course the well off students do, but the rest are jobless and in debt. After leaning Ancient Greek and a few other useless skills from this pretentious college, I finally did something wise and went to trade school. I earn more than people who were my classmates in my first year welding. Now I build prototype weapons for the military and advise engineers. I am also an instructor at a community college without a degree. You don't need a degree to teach if your knowledge is valuable to society! I went to St Johns to become an English teacher, but this school did not provide the knowledge for me to even do that. Even though I'm not teaching literature, I'm teaching something of value. Do yourselves a favor. Don't invest in SJC! Go to trade school and invest in YOU! I never learned science and math at St. John's... their classes are a joke and not practical. Where did I learn physics, chemistry, and mathematics? Burning rod! "Skilled manual labor entails a systematic encounter with the material world, precisely the kind of encounter that gives rise to natural science. From its earliest practice, craft knowledge has entailed knowledge of the "ways" of one's materials -- that is, knowledge of their nature, acquired through disciplined perception and a systematic approach to problems. And in fact, in areas of well-developed craft, technological developments typically preceded and gave rise to advances in scientific understanding, not vice versa. The steam engine is a good example. It was developed by mechanics who observed the relations between volume, pressure, and temperature. This at a time when theoretical scientists were tied to the caloric theory of heat, which later turned out to be a conceptual dead end. The success of the steam engine contributed to the development of what we now call classical thermodynamics. This history provides a nice illustration of a point made by Aristotle: Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations." Shop Class as Soulcraft read more

I stopped by here today - just because I was curious and was in the mood for seeing a Macalesteresque college. Walking around St. John's campus made me want to go back to college again. All of these liberal artsy smartie pants discussing Great Books, whilst taking themselves way way too seriously made me JEALOUS. The t-shirt selection in the bookstore was awesome. read more

I graduated from this college. Contrary to what Aaron above says about using the degree, I can say It has helped me develop several good careers, and make a good living. Also, a very high percentage of graduate go on to graduate school and do very well. A very different curriculum, a different approach to higher education: check out their web site for details, and if you are a high school student and are interested, I highly recommend the "Summer Academy" one week immersion in St. John's curriculum and life. (Note: despite the name, this is not a secular school.) read more

If you are drawn to the St. John's curriculum and there's any way you can manage to attend, don't deprive yourself! I taught for over eight years at one of the top two or three public universities in the US before starting my own business. What I learned and how I learned at St. John's have been central to my success with both endeavors. There is no doubt that I was more able, ready and willing to think for myself and fruitfully question received ideas than my fellow grad students because of the background that St. John's provided. Perhaps most importantly, St. John's gave me untold riches in the form of wonderful lifelong friendships. Attending such a tiny school with such a unified, learner-centered academic program makes for an experience of community like no other. Never before or since have I been connected to so many others in such a rich way. More than once over the years, friends who attended Ivy League schools have confided in me that they regretted not going to St. John's. I'm so grateful that the allure of prestige didn't lead me off in other directions. There's simply nothing like encountering the words and ideas of the likes of Hegel, Dante, Pascal, Descartes, Cervantes and Leibniz in such an unmediated way. If you take your seminar readings and other studies at St. John's to heart, your mind will be blown again and again and again. You also will be a better writer and thinker and more acute observer for, like, ever!! Though you will not be conventionally prepared, you will have a much deeper and richer context than your peers do for almost any intellectual or creative or other life pursuit in which you engage post-St John's. The motto on the school crest or whatever, "We make free men with books and a balance," may sound like meaningless mumbo jumbo or crapola. Its claim seemed a bit abstract and also perhaps overblown to me when I was a student there. Now, years past my graduation, I get it; I have no doubt that I am a more free thinker, who can range more widely and avoid being overawed by experts, because of St. John's. Also, Santa Fe and New Mexico generally is a remarkable, unique, stunning and strange locale that will work its way into your heart. If your gut or heart or mind inclines you in the school's direction, I really hope you get to go. read more