St. John's College

Private · Moderately Selective · MD

Photo: Doukinosakura (CC BY-SA 3.0)

School data & stats

TypePrivate

LocationMD · South

SettingSuburban

Undergrads471

Student:faculty8:1

Outcomes

4-yr grad rate62.2%

6-yr grad rate71.4%

Drop-out rate17.3%

Study abroad—

Cost

In-state tuition$41k

Out-of-state tuition$41k

Application fee—

Community

Racial diversity37.2%

Gender diversity49.3%

International13.8%

Identity—

Overview

St. John's College in Annapolis is one of two campuses (the other in Santa Fe) built entirely around the Great Books curriculum: there are no majors, no textbooks beyond primary sources, and almost no lectures. Every student follows the same required four-year sequence of seminars, tutorials, and laboratories built from the foundational texts of Western mathematics, science, philosophy, literature, and political thought, from Euclid and Homer through Einstein and Woolf.

Academics

Instead of departments, the curriculum is organized around small seminars led by "tutors" (the school's term for faculty, chosen for being generalists rather than narrow specialists) who guide discussion rather than lecture. Students read primary texts in the order they were historically written, work proofs from Euclid by hand, study ancient Greek and French, and take required lab science and math every year regardless of interest — the goal is shared intellectual formation, not preparation for a specific major or career.

Campus & student life

The Annapolis campus sits in the historic colonial capital of Maryland, immediately adjacent to the U.S. Naval Academy, and the two schools share an unusual rivalry: an annual croquet match between St. John's and the Naval Academy is treated as a major campus event, played in whites with genuine ceremony. Student culture is bookish and close-knit by design, built around the shared seminar experience rather than Greek life or big-time athletics, which the school does not field at a varsity level in the conventional sense.

Getting in

St. John's admissions process is unusually personal for a selective college: instead of a standard essay, applicants are asked to submit and discuss substantive academic papers, and interviews are a central, not optional, part of the process. The college looks explicitly for students who want to be full-time readers and discussants for four years, and it is candid that the program is not a fit for everyone.

After graduation

Graduates disperse into law, academia, writing, and technology at notably high rates relative to the school's small size, and the college points to strong placement into top graduate and professional schools as evidence that broad intellectual training transfers well. The alumni network is small but unusually loyal, bound by the shared experience of the same four-year program regardless of graduation year.

Worth knowing

Because the curriculum is fixed and identical for every student, there is no way to test out of requirements or specialize early — a student weighing St. John's should know they are choosing the entire program, not a set of electives within a broader college. The sister campus in Santa Fe runs the identical curriculum in a very different high-desert setting, and some students transfer between the two.

sjc.edu ↗

Admissions

Acceptance rate55.2%

Enrolled mid-50%SAT 1270–1440 · ACT 27–32

Test policyoptional

Rec letters2

Deadlines (2026–27 cycle)

Early actionNov 15

Early decisionNov 1

Regular decisionJan 15

Applying