! St. Michael’s College Founded in 1904, St. Micheal’s College (aka St. Mike’s) is the only college of the Edmundite Catholic Church in the United States. A liberal arts college with around 2,000 students, St. Michael’s is located around Burlington, Vermont, considered one of the nation’s nicest college towns. St. Mike’s shares the area with four other colleges, including the University of Vermont. St. Mike’s is also the smallest Catholic college in New England to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s most distinguished academic honor society. It was an all-male school until 1970. Today the majority of undergraduates are women. St. Mike’s is a regional school. Seventy one percent of the undergraduate student body comes from the New England states and New York. Interestingly, for a Catholic college, two thirds of the undergraduates attended public high schools, and only half of the students are Catholic. Just over a fifth attended a Catholic high school. St. Mike’s is not exceptionally selective, but it attracts the B+/A- student, much like the state universities in the states where most of the students came from. Last year the college offered admission to just over 70 percent of the students who applied to join the class that entered this fall. The average SAT scores for the freshmen who entered in 2014, and submitted scores, was 1170 (out of 1600) for the Critical Reading and Math sections of the test. Admissions, however, are test optional. St. Mike’s is cross-shopped most often against the home state universities where the majority of its applicants come from (University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont) as well as small and mid-sized Catholic colleges in New England and New York State, including Boston College, Fairfield University, Holy Cross, Providence, St. Lawrence, Stonehill (MA) and St. Anselm’s (NH). It is also cross-shopped against Champlain College in Burlington. St. Mike’s is most similar in academic mix and student body size to St. Anselm. In fact the two schools have about the same number of undergraduates, according to College Results Online. Also, according to this source, both schools have about the same share of students majoring in business, education and the social sciences; these subjects represent about half of the students with deadlier majors at both schools. St. Mike’s has a greater share of students majoring in the arts and humanities as well as math and science while St. Anselm offers health-related degrees that St. Michael’s does not. St. Mike’s does an excellent job at retaining and graduating its students. Ninety percent of the freshmen who entered in 2013 returned for their sophomore year while 79 percent of the students who entered in 2008 graduated within four years. These numbers are comparable to liberal arts colleges that are far more selective in their admissions ! process; they are also superior to the rates for any public university in New England or New York. Costs St. Mike’s charged just over $51,700 for tuition and fees, room and board for the 2015-16 school year, about a three percent increase from the year before. These charges are about the same as the University of Vermont (UVM) would assess out-of- state students. Parochial school graduates receive a $5,000 discount, renewable each year for as long as the student maintains a 2.0 GPA or higher. Catholic students who did not attend a parochial school may be nominated by their parish for a similar award. With these discounts, St. Mike’s becomes price-competitive with the non-resident charges of University of Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of New Hampshire as well as UVM to attract students. The College also offers a variety of scholarships ranging from $1,000 to full tuition. Interestingly, according to College Results Online, more than a fifth of St, Mike’s students qualified for Federal Pell Grants to help them defray their costs. On average St. Mike’s met 83 percent of need for students for the freshmen who needed financial aid in 2014, and 79 percent of the need for the full undergraduate student body, according to the College’s 2015-16 Common Data Set. More than a third of the freshman class received a merit-based award; these averaged just over $17,000. The College is exceptionally generous with financial aid considering that its endowment was less than $90 million in FY 2015, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. For comparison, St. Anselm, a school that is about the same size, had an endowment of just over $130 million. Among St. Mike’s students who graduated in 2014 and needed to take out loans, the average indebtedness was just over $26,700, quite reasonable for a private college. Students who borrow through the Federal Stafford Student Loan program may borrow a maximum of $27,000. Curriculum St. Mike’s offers 33 majors as well as 11 minors that are separate from the major fields. The college is also engaged in 3-2 engineering programs with the University of Vermont and Clarkson University (NY). It also participates in an exchange program that allows students to take courses at other Vermont private colleges including Bennington and Middlebury. The college also has articulation agreements with Vermont Law School and Albany College of Pharmacy. ! Since St. Mike’s is not subdivided in separate schools of arts and sciences and business, among others, the college applies the same general education requirements to students in all majors. It takes 128 credits, or 16 per semester, to earn a degree, presuming a four-course load each semester. The liberal arts requirements are about the same as they are at similar schools with the exceptions of a year-long study of Christian Traditions and Thought as well as a one-semester course in Western Philosophy. St. Mike’s has an Experiential Learning requirement for credit that may be fulfilled through an internship, research with a faculty member or an independent study, among other options. With between 44 and 52 credits towards general education requirements, some of which could be applied towards a major or minor, it is relatively easy to graduate with a double major or multiple minors from St. Mike’s. The college reports that its most popular majors are in Business, Biology, Psychology, English, Communications (Media Studies, Journalism and Digital Arts), Elementary Education and Environmental Studies. The depth of the communications and education programs is quite impressive for a small school. Two downsides: the business and accounting programs are not accredited by the Assembly for the Advancement of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), sometimes a consideration by employers who recruit for those majors. The most similar school with an accredited business program is Stonehill College (MA). The other downside is that the Honors Program, while properly rigorous, requires a 3.6 GPA to continue. That is a relatively high requirement for any college, large or small. You’re not likely to see many large classes at St. Mike’s. Ninety percent of all undergraduate courses on campus have fewer than 30 students. Only three percent of all classes had more than 40 students; these are mainly the introductory courses that are required to complete several majors such as Biology, Chemistry, Economics or Physics. The college’s largest lecture room seats 100 students. St. Mike’s students gave their faculty a rating of 3.82 (out of a possible 5) on RateMyProfessors.com. For comparison, St. Mike’s students held higher regard for their faculty than students at Fairfield (3.68), Holy Cross (3.77), Providence (3.76) and Stonehill (3.73) and about the same regard as students at St. Anselm (3.80), the most similar school. They held their faculty in higher regard than students at any of the flagship state universities in New England. Among the most cross-shopped schools, only Boston College students gave their faculty a higher rating (3.94). Community St. Mike’s is more about community than most colleges, large or small. Just over 80 percent of the student body participates in some form of community service, mostly through programs administered under the banner of Mobilization of Volunteer Efforts (MOVE). There are 21 programs under MOVE alone, with others organized by students, ! staff and clergy on campus. St. Mike’s was one of the first colleges in the United States to offer Alternative Spring Break programs, including volunteer opportunities abroad. Thirty percent of the student body will go abroad at some point in their education, some through academic programs, others through service projects. Students also serve in the local Wilderness Fire and Rescue program, which responds annually to approximately 3,000 calls in the community. St. Mike’s is also about the outdoors. If you want a liberal arts education as well as outdoor recreational opportunities off campus, put this school on your list. The college organizes Wilderness Orientation Weekends for freshmen and offers a catalog of more than 60 outdoor-oriented weekend programs in skiing, camping, mountain biking, hiking and rafting, among others. Students pay between $10 to $15 to go on an outing, and about the same to rent any equipment needed to go. Approximately 800 students— amazing for a college with only 2,000 undergraduates—participate in one or more of these activities each school year. In addition, students may buy a $65 season pass for Smuggler’s Notch, one of the leading ski resorts in Vermont.