The early entrance program at Shimer College, known at different times as the Early Entrant Program and Early Entrance Program[1], is a program that allows high school students to go to college early. Early entrants at Shimer are admitted as regular college students after completing at least two years of high school, but before receiving a high school diploma or GED.[2] Begun with the conversion of Shimer to a Great Books curriculum in 1950, this program is the longest-running college early entrance program in the United States.[2]
Early entrants, who have historically made up about 20% of the student body, participate in the school's discussion-based Great Books curriculum as equals with other students.[2] Although for many years early entrants were governed by the same open admissions policy as other Shimer applicants, currently they must show that they are in the top 25% according to at least one quantitative metric.[3] Many of the school's most distinguished 20th-century alumni have been early entrants.
As of 2008, early entrants accounted for 16% of Shimer College enrollment.[4]
Contents |
See also: Shimer College#Academics
Early entrants participate in the same courses, and are graded on the same scale, as all other Shimer students.[2] All Shimer students go through a four-year core curriculum of Great Books discussion classes. No classes have more than 12 students. In addition, students take electives and tutorials, which are available both from Shimer faculty and from the three schools with which Shimer has an articulation agreement: Illinois Institute of Technology, Vandercook College of Music, and Harold Washington College.
Early entrants also have equal access to the specialized curricular offerings of the college. These include the biennial study abroad program at Oxford University and a 6-year accelerated JD program offered in cooperation with Chicago-Kent College of Law.
See also: History of Shimer College
In 1950, Shimer College adapted the Great Books academic program of the College of the University of Chicago, a program developed under the leadership of Robert Maynard Hutchins in the 1930s and 1940s.[5] Shimer was then located in the small rural town of Mount Carroll, Illinois. In introducing the Hutchins program at Shimer, it was hoped that parents of early entrants would be more willing to send their children to Mount Carroll than to the Hyde Park neighborhood in Chicago.[6]
In the decades prior to 1950, Shimer had been a women's four-year junior college, catering to students from 11th grade through the second year of college.[7] As a result, unlike other schools which introduced early entrance in the 1950s, Shimer had a faculty and administration who were used to dealing with students of high school age.[7][8]
In 1951, Shimer was one of eleven colleges provided by the Fund for the Advancement of Education, an offshoot of the Ford Foundation, with scholarship funding for early entrants.[9] The Fund had been established at the initiative of Robert Maynard Hutchins, who had taken an executive position at the Ford Foundation after leaving the University of Chicago, and this initiative, like many others, reflected Hutchins' unorthodox educational priorities.[10] The Fund's support allowed the school's enrollment and revenues to increase; during the mid-1950s, early entrants receiving Ford Foundation scholarships accounted for more than 80% of the student body.[11] As the grant's expiration neared in 1956, the ensuing shortfall in funding nearly forced Shimer to close its doors. [12]
Although very small in scale—only 1,350 students had been admitted across all twelve colleges through 1954—the Fund's "Early Admission Program" ignited a firestorm of controversy. The executive secretary of the National Association of Secondary-School Principals described it as "an 'A-bomb' dropped on secondary education."[13] Many high-school principals refused to inform their students of the opportunity to participate.[14] The program was an educational success, with students outperforming comparison groups,[15] but because of the hostility from both high schools and university faculty, early entrance programs quickly fizzled out at most participating colleges other than Shimer.[16]
Although full scholarships for early entrants were never again the norm after the expiration of the Fund for the Advancement of Education grant, Shimer has continued to the present day to offer a modest scholarship bearing Hutchins' name to all admitted early entrants.[2] Funding to support early entrance has also been provided at times by the Carnegie and SURDNA Foundations.[2]
As of 2010, applicants for early entrance must place in at least the top quartile in at least one of four metrics: SAT, ACT, GPA, or class rank.[3] In addition, although Shimer generally does not require standardized test scores for admission, as a matter of principle, early entrants must take either the SAT or ACT.[17]
For much of its history, the early entrance program at Shimer had no fixed entrance requirements. This was in accordance with the guiding philosophy of the Hutchins program, where students self-selected and worked at their own pace.[18] This open-door policy contrasted with programs developed more recently, in the 1970s and 1980s, which targeted only the "gifted" or "exceptionally gifted".[19] It was radical even in its time; among the twelve colleges participating in the Fund for the Advancement of Education program in the 1950s, Shimer was the only one to pursue a truly open admissions policy.[20] Due to the mixed results of this initial experiment, however, the admissions requirements were subsequently tightened to be more similar to those of the other participating schools.[8]
The 1978 Shimer catalog stated:
See also: List of Shimer College people
Graduates and former students of Shimer College who enrolled through early entrance include: