Deep Springs, California
Deep Springs is a very small, private, all male, very intense Liberal Arts college and working cattle ranch and alfalfa farm. Founded in 1917 by electrical pioneer and educational experimenter L.L. Nunn, the college is the only institution in a long, high-desert valley in eastern California, north-west of Las Vegas on highway 168. The official name of the institution is just “Deep Springs,” but it is most of the time referred to as Deep Springs College. It is one of the few remaining all-men’s Liberal Arts colleges in the United States. The college is founded on three principles, commonly called the “three pillars”: Academics, Labor, and Self-Governance. Deep Springs’s physical isolation reflects the philosophy of college. Many Deep Springs alumni have been awarded Rhodes and Truman Scholarships, and two have been awarded MacArthur “genius grants”: geophysicist Raymond Jeanloz and sinologist Erik Mueggler.
Student Body
The student body at Deep Springs holds approximately twenty-five male students of exceptional ability. Students pay no tuition or room and board fees.
Curriculum
Deep Springs offers only an Associate's Degree in the Liberal Arts. Deep Springers usually transfer after two years at the college to continue their education at a four-year institution. Over the long term, more than two-thirds of the alumni have earned graduate degrees, with over half holding a doctorate (M.D., J.D., Ph.D., etc.) as their terminal degree.
The courses offered at Deep Springs are intensive and interactive seminars. The average class size is four, so every member must come prepared to contribute to the discussion. As a result, students devote a great deal of time and energy to their assignments, and discussions often achieve a depth uncommon at the undergraduate level.
Deep Springs has a library of over 23,000 volumes, a modest periodicals subscription, and computer work stations with internet and e-mail access via satellite. They have ample facilities for the needs of the academic program and include a music room, a piano room, a laboratory, a darkroom, a ceramics studio, a library, a smithy, an auto shop, a wood shop, a saddle and leatherworking shop, fifty square miles of desert ecology and geology, and three classrooms. Classes are often also held in unconventional locations, like the irrigation ditch or professors' homes.
Admissions
All interested candidates are required to take the SAT or ACT and also complete a two-stage application. The deadline for Part I of the application, which includes an official transcript and three essays, is November 15. All the applications that arrive at Deep Springs are read and rated by a number of readers, including the members from ApCom as well as Student Body and faculty recruited from the wider community. They are discussed and voted for individually. Then it is decided as to which of the applicants will be invited to the valley during Term 4 in the winter for an interview.
In mid-late December, all selected applicants are invited to complete Part II of the applications process. Those invited needs to submit Part II of the application, which includes two letters of recommendation and a few additional essays, by January 15. They also must prepare for a three-to-four day visit and interview by the end of February. During the visit, the applicant has the opportunity to see what life at Deep Springs is like. He also needs to discuss his application in an interview with ApCom.
Final decisions are mailed out by mid-April.
Deep Springs College Financial Aid
Financial aid for students is readily accessible at this school. Whether it is Need based or not a need based all the financial aid distribution is determined through Academics.
Deep Springs College Athletics
The college pride itself in playing and organising Basketball, cross-country, football, Soccer, Table tennis, wrestling and Track and fields runs.
