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[yellowtractor]

P.S.  Apologies to DvF and Aandsdean for cross-posting; you've already made some of the same points.

[dogvomit]

How many of us either went there or will be sending their children there?
or at least trying.

As for my punctuation, its as good as your tact.

[aandsdean]

How many of us either went there or will be sending their children there?
or at least trying.

Frog, that's a lame argument and you know it.  There are many wonderful schools where I wouldn't be sending, or trying to send, my children were I to have any. 

When I was applying to colleges (I went to Pomona College, by the way, a fact that's already on the record here), I didn't apply to any Ivy League schools, or Stanford.  My mother was a highly regarded professor in her field and though I don't think she was as plugged in to overall higher education issues as I am, she certainly knew plenty about college choices.  Does the fact that she didn't send me to Harvard or Princeton, or even try, mean that they're inadequate schools?

[csguy]

I would not say I sent the Young Person to college. YP picked the school.

I think Deep Springs is interesting. A different sort of school. Other interesting schools might include St John's (Great Books), Berea (work college like Deep Springs) and once upon a time Antioch.

Despite the failure of Antioch I would maintain that this sort of distinctiveness can be something of value. If YP had picked one of these it would have been fine with me.

As for the size of Deep Springs -- how many faculty did you work closely with in grad school? How many students were there in your cohort? SLAC's try to emulate this kind of close faculty student interaction at the undergraduate level.

One of my alma maters had a Nobel winner on staff. Never met him. Doubt many undergrads did.

[dogvomit]

oh,
I did not make a decision on this specific institution.  
I asked for proof because I found the claims of posters hard to believe.

I am still doubtful of Deep Springs credibility, but I am closer to being convinced that before.  Still, I know how the marketing game works.  You tell what makes you look good.

There are a lot of numbers here that seem spectacular, nearly unbelievable.  

And while you guys state you have heard of these people, I have not heard of but a few.  

Just because they don't pay, does not mean it is not a scam.  Income can be derived very easily by using these folks to attract donations for a program that essentially does nothing.

I still would like to see proof that the people who came in the door actually left more qualified than when they arived.  IF the average student coming in is the top of the class, and they can only come up with a short list of graduates who are known, then they aren't really doing all that well.  

They have 22 students who rank in the top of their class.  The local community college does about that good with the about two dozen top students in their class.  In the same time frame as Deep Springs, our community college in the middle of the poorest part of the state produced 1 presidential candidate, a couple of federal representatives, two leaders of international corporatations, and one leader of a national corporation.  Not to mention a couple of fairly well known musicians.   The produced a hoard of students who went on to professional schools.  One of their graduates was recently awarded the medal of honor.  I wish I could list these people off without the probability of releasing my identity.  

The local CC had the disadvantage of getting only a few top students relative to their student body.  Yet, many of these poor students went on to be major players.  

So who did the better job?  The school that only had 22 top students with 6 phds, or the cc that had 5 masters faculty and only had contact with these students for a mere 6-12 hours a week?  It is taking these faculty all day to barely tweak out what the local CC did?  

Its pretty easy to take the best and get the best, but the wikipedia list of famous alumni from Deep Springs is not much different than that of my local community college.  Frankly, the local community college has produced a more successful group with better name recognition.  Unfortunately, the nature of this forum makes it impossible for me to list these names and so I can't show you the proof.  

Thats what I want to see.  Do these students from Deep Springs REALLY improve their status by going there as opposed to a different institution.  Its really simple.  If every student going to Deep Springs could get in Harvard before they came there, then they were still qualified to go to Harvard afterwords, what have they gained?

I'm trying to get the low down on this college, and it would be a little easier if you could refrain from the childish attacks and recognize that I am a critical cinic.  

Deep Springs website claims that 43% of their students go on to schools such as U of Chicago, Harvard, Yale,...

So, they get fantastic students, work with them all day and night and less than half are making it into the premeire schools.  

I suspect that if I took any six of you off of this listserv, handed you 22 students who ranked at the top of their respective classes, that you could get a higher percentage into the top schools.  

Do you see where I'm coming from?  

IF you get the best of the best, you students should have near 100% placement in top schools.  They are at 43%.  The local CC got about two dozen students at the top of their class.  100% got into the top two colleges in the state, or similar institutions elsewhere.  
They do state that over 90% accept admission offers.  Does that mean that 10% do not accept offers or that 10% don't get offers?  Is this 90% of students who get offers accept them?  

[dogvomit]

I would not say I sent the Young Person to college. YP picked the school.

I think Deep Springs is interesting. A different sort of school. Other interesting schools might include St John's (Great Books), Berea (work college like Deep Springs) and once upon a time Antioch.

Despite the failure of Antioch I would maintain that this sort of distinctiveness can be something of value. If YP had picked one of these it would have been fine with me.

As for the size of Deep Springs -- how many faculty did you work closely with in grad school? How many students were there in your cohort? SLAC's try to emulate this kind of close faculty student interaction at the undergraduate level.

One of my alma maters had a Nobel winner on staff. Never met him. Doubt many undergrads did.

I agree that it is interesting.  Thats why I am asking so many questions.  IF this is all true, its truly remarkeable.  But I am having difficulty believing everything I read on their website because I have read these kinds of claims on many websites only to find they are skewed, manipulated, or outright fabrications.  And, in this regard I am not picking on SLACs.  The big schools are just as guilty. 

I took chemistry from the prodigee of a Nobel Prize Winner.  In my university I had my office across the hall from a professor who graduated under a Nobel Prize Winner (in this case he was responsible for the MRI).  This prof was brilliant and taught in a program with 500 undergrads, all of whom had to take his required course.  So, I agree with your point that Nobel Prize winners don't write the book on the quality of an education.  However, this school is using temporary faculty.  If they are in fact all people who work at top tier schools and decide to take a sabatical to work there, I would be more settled about this.  But I get the impression from the previous poster that some of these are simply VAPs.  Not that a VAP can't be a great professor, but generally if you have a choice between a VAP and a TT, you take the TT.  And, generally the average person who made tenure is more qualified to teach than the average VAP.  Therefore, the average faculty member at Deep Springs should be less qualified than the average professor at any other university.  These are the things I am questioning.  Its not an attack, just show me these statements are wrong.  This isn't intended to attack anyone, I want to get to the bottom of it.  If I really thought it was 100% crap, I would laugh and leave you alone.  I just want clarification that all of this is true.  Its hard to believe. 

[dogvomit]

How many of us either went there or will be sending their children there?
or at least trying.

Frog, that's a lame argument and you know it.  There are many wonderful schools where I wouldn't be sending, or trying to send, my children were I to have any. 

When I was applying to colleges (I went to Pomona College, by the way, a fact that's already on the record here), I didn't apply to any Ivy League schools, or Stanford.  My mother was a highly regarded professor in her field and though I don't think she was as plugged in to overall higher education issues as I am, she certainly knew plenty about college choices.  Does the fact that she didn't send me to Harvard or Princeton, or even try, mean that they're inadequate schools?

It wasn't an arguement, it was a question.  IS anyone on here hoping their child will go there? 
If its that good, I would love my child to go there. 

[yellowtractor]

Frogman, I've already agreed with you that I think it's legitimate to note that these students would have been going on to high-prestige universities anyway.  Presumably, "what they get" from Deep Springs is the experience itself, and the intangibles (self-government, service commitment, labor program) that are touted as such an integral part of the package.

If I had a son looking at colleges, I would, frankly, hope he would choose a co-ed school; I'm iffy on single-sex education.  But I would certainly support his decision to attend Deep Springs, if that was the sort of experience he wanted and he was admitted.

In terms of the faculty, my guess is that it varies, as it does everywhere.  Those on leave from their host universities or in early retirement are already tenured--they've already achieved that elsewhere.  With VAPs, straight out of graduate school, you never know.  Some are exceptional, some aren't.

I know a number of former Deep Springs students and faculty, both within and outside of my disciplines.

St. Johns is a good comparison, though of course it is slightly larger than Deep Springs and predicated on the Great Books program.  (Deep Springs is not, though it has been, to varying degrees at various times, influenced by that thinking.)  Berea's mission is a lot like Deep Springs', at least on paper; in practice, it's a much larger school, the service commitment is less central to the overall experience, and of course there is the Appalachian setting and the religious (Christian) component.  (Deep Springs is avowedly secular.)

[dogvomit]

As for my writing, maybe you should shut you traps and consider that I may have a disability???  Possibly I am well published, but it take me hours to get things together because of this disability?  And, communicating on a forum is a little difficult when you are typing your letters in one at a time through a key pad?  Could this be true?  

There are quite a few people on here who are so stuck on structure, they forget that communication involves more than sentence structure.  As an editor of a highly rated international journal, I've been shocked at the poor writing in journal articles of many people with lofty positions.  I would not be surprised if I have screened a few of the papers of you folks.  But it does take me more time than most of you, and its easier to type in a pre-programmed "poor sentence structure" than to write out a paragraph for your critique.  

I do notice that occassionally some people correct the grammar on the posts.  Thats a nice thing to do, then people see what they did if they are bad writers.  But the asps that hide behind the rubble of anonymity within this forum, abrasively attacking the grammar and writing of others casting insults from their abode of protection are obviously not interested in the writing or grammar they point to, but rather they are interested in lifting their own poor self image.  Criticism involves pointing out what is right, insult involves being an ass.  There are quite a few of you hidden behind our electronic curtains.

[dogvomit]

Hey Yellow,
Thank you for trying to answer my questions.  I appreciate it!
The single sex thing also bothered me, but I was more amazed at the education quality.  I was, frankly, surprised that noone has brought that up.  It is strange that a school of this quality has not been asked to admit women.  I know it is private, but political pressure tends to weigh heavily on any institution.   

[yellowtractor]

Hey Yellow,
Thank you for trying to answer my questions.  I appreciate it!
The single sex thing also bothered me, but I was more amazed at the education quality.  I was, frankly, surprised that noone has brought that up.  It is strange that a school of this quality has not been asked to admit women.  I know it is private, but political pressure tends to weigh heavily on any institution.   

It did go co-ed, briefly, once, I think in the early 1980s.  It "did not work out," as the euphemism has it.  I do not know the details.  My understanding is that both the trustees and the student body have to approve the change, and they've never been united on making it.  There have been efforts to raise money for a women's school on the same plan.

The Telluride Association, which is technically a separate entity but founded by the same man on the same principles, is co-ed, and operates chapters at several larger schools, including (I think) Cornell and Wash U. in St. Louis.

If you are really interested in hearing more about the school first-hand, from a non-partisan source, The New Yorker (of all pubs) ran a feature article on Deep Springs about a year ago.  It doesn't appear to be available in full on-line, though I remember it as being lengthy.  Here's the link to the abstract:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/09/04/060904fa_fact_goodyear

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Thats what I want to see.  Do these students from Deep Springs REALLY improve their status by going there as opposed to a different institution.  Its really simple.  If every student going to Deep Springs could get in Harvard before they came there, then they were still qualified to go to Harvard afterwords, what have they gained?

It is not simple to judge how a student has improved in a couple of years of school; that is why assessment has turned into a political football in recent years.

Your "really simple" test doesn't work.  For example, one could conclude from the test that Harvard is useless, since students going there don't have a better chance of getting in after two years than they did when they entered.  (Possibly worse, in fact, which would by this test mean that Harvard provides a diseducation.)

So, they get fantastic students, work with them all day and night and less than half are making it into the premeire schools. 

The real question is how many of them do what they want after they leave.    You are assuming that more than half are actually applying to these particular schools, but there is no reason to believe that.  Some of them might want particular programs only available at less prestigious (but broader) schools, such as large state schools.  Others might want to finish their education at other top-quality  small institutions, like Cal Tech and Pomona.

They do state that over 90% accept admission offers.  Does that mean that 10% do not accept offers or that 10% don't get offers?  Is this 90% of students who get offers accept them? 

I believe that application is by invitation only, so I read this statistic to say that of the people who have been invited to apply, do apply, and then get accepted, 90% subsequently attend.  In other words, once students have applied and been accepted, they've been through 3 filters already, so a high rate of attendance is not surprising.

A quick check of Lexis-Nexis shows a story about DS on the AP wire last July 14, which says that 11-15 students get accepted each years out of approximately 200 who apply.

Also, an article in the NYT from April 2006, addressing the same-sex thing:

David Neidorf, the academic dean at Deep Springs, says that 15 years ago most of the students felt the single-sex policy was a mistake. Now, he says, most agree with it. ''My suspicion is it has to do with the fact that for kids of this generation, the whole social struggle for women's rights appears to them as if it's already over,'' he said. ''It isn't in some sense, but they don't know that. But that allows them to focus more attention on the personal aspects of single-sex campuses rather than to see them as political issues.'

And finally the following online article, discussing not only DS but also St. Johns and a couple of other interesting schools:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970603191251/http://www.gse.utah.edu/EdAdm/Galvin/Maverick.html

PS to Frogman: the reason I brought up the grammar, and (presumably) YT brought up the spelling, is that you were in the process of dismissing a school's academic quality.  Surely you can see that making such mistakes while putting down a school leaves yourself wide open.  - DvF

[yellowtractor]

They do state that over 90% accept admission offers.  Does that mean that 10% do not accept offers or that 10% don't get offers?  Is this 90% of students who get offers accept them? 

I believe that application is by invitation only, so I read this statistic to say that of the people who have been invited to apply, do apply, and then get accepted, 90% subsequently attend.  In other words, once students have applied and been accepted, they've been through 3 filters already, so a high rate of attendance is not surprising.

A quick check of Lexis-Nexis shows a story about DS on the AP wire last July 14, which says that 11-15 students get accepted each years out of approximately 200 who apply.

Deep Springs has an open application period each fall.  Applications are screened, and then a smaller group of applicants is asked to complete a second round of essays.  From this pool, an even smaller cohort is invited to the college for a (mandatory) visit in which they take part in labor, classes, etc.  Offers of admission are made after this round of visits is complete.

By the time actual offers of admission are tendered, the school is pretty sure it knows who it wants, and the applicants are pretty sure they know whether Deep Springs is for them.  Hence the high yield.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

Therefore, the average faculty member at Deep Springs should be less qualified than the average professor at any other university.

That assumes that they chose to be temporaries at DS because they could not get a permanent job elsewhere.

SLAC faculty rarely have Nobel-level credentials (or even R1-level credentials), but the success of many SLACs remind us that such credentials are not necessarily important credentials for teaching undergraduates. - DvF

[dogvomit]

Thats what I want to see.  Do these students from Deep Springs REALLY improve their status by going there as opposed to a different institution.  Its really simple.  If every student going to Deep Springs could get in Harvard before they came there, then they were still qualified to go to Harvard afterwords, what have they gained?

It is not simple to judge how a student has improved in a couple of years of school; that is why assessment has turned into a political football in recent years.

Your "really simple" test doesn't work.  For example, one could conclude from the test that Harvard is useless, since students going there don't have a better chance of getting in after two years than they did when they entered.  (Possibly worse, in fact, which would by this test mean that Harvard provides a diseducation.)

So, they get fantastic students, work with them all day and night and less than half are making it into the premeire schools. 

The real question is how many of them do what they want after they leave.    You are assuming that more than half are actually applying to these particular schools, but there is no reason to believe that.  Some of them might want particular programs only available at less prestigious (but broader) schools, such as large state schools.  Others might want to finish their education at other top-quality  small institutions, like Cal Tech and Pomona.

They do state that over 90% accept admission offers.  Does that mean that 10% do not accept offers or that 10% don't get offers?  Is this 90% of students who get offers accept them? 

I believe that application is by invitation only, so I read this statistic to say that of the people who have been invited to apply, do apply, and then get accepted, 90% subsequently attend.  In other words, once students have applied and been accepted, they've been through 3 filters already, so a high rate of attendance is not surprising.

A quick check of Lexis-Nexis shows a story about DS on the AP wire last July 14, which says that 11-15 students get accepted each years out of approximately 200 who apply.

Also, an article in the NYT from April 2006, addressing the same-sex thing:

David Neidorf, the academic dean at Deep Springs, says that 15 years ago most of the students felt the single-sex policy was a mistake. Now, he says, most agree with it. ''My suspicion is it has to do with the fact that for kids of this generation, the whole social struggle for women's rights appears to them as if it's already over,'' he said. ''It isn't in some sense, but they don't know that. But that allows them to focus more attention on the personal aspects of single-sex campuses rather than to see them as political issues.'

And finally the following online article, discussing not only DS but also St. Johns and a couple of other interesting schools:
http://web.archive.org/web/19970603191251/http://www.gse.utah.edu/EdAdm/Galvin/Maverick.html

PS to Frogman: the reason I brought up the grammar, and (presumably) YT brought up the spelling, is that you were in the process of dismissing a school's academic quality.  Surely you can see that making such mistakes while putting down a school leaves yourself wide open.  - DvF

Why wouldn't any sensible person dismiss the quality of an institution that goes completely against the grain of virtually every aspect of modern Higher Education?  Especially, when their website so poorly describes their institution. 

In reality, I would never go to a school like this even if it is good.  But that is my personal opinion.  Whether or not it is a good school, there is some evidence that it might be based on your statements, there is some evidence in the New Yorker, etc.  But still, the school makes no attemp to reveal any meaningful data and this should raise a red flag with anybody. 

Having surfed many university and college websites, the good schools usually have good information on their site.  The bad schools throw out some stats and thats it because they don't want you to know.  Clearly, this school is living on its reputation and not revealing (at least online) its data. 

No one says it has to.  But, if there is not data except some statistics that are written in the manner typical of schools that are inflating their stats, nearly anyone unfamiliar with the institution is going to roll their eyes in disbelief. 

I have been asking around about this school ever since I first read the post here, and no one I know has heard of it.  Its not like I live in a cave and am asking the cave paintings here.  So, whatever reputation it has it is clearly within a certain subset of society within which a number of you belong.  There is nothing wrong with that, but some of these people should have heard of it. 

So, while I have to admit it could be a great place, without some real data I'm still suspect.  But not near as much as before.