If you are looking for an innovative small school, Colby College might be a good fit for you. It is a private college, founded in 1813 as an all-male school. In 1871 it became the first college of its kind to open its doors to female students. In fact, Colby College is the twelfth oldest liberal arts college in the country. Its U.S. News and World Report ranking is #19 of National Liberal Arts Colleges. Nearly three-fourths of its classes have less than twenty students and the student-to-faculty ratio at Colby is 10:1. There are 57 major at the school, and 32 minors. Ninety-five percent of Colby students live on-campus and more than two-thirds study abroad during their academic career.
Colby College Accreditation Details
- Northeast Association of Schools and Colleges
- Maine Department of Education
- American Chemical Society
Colby College Application Requirements
You can apply to the school online, or print off an application and submit it by conventional mail. There is no application fee. In addition to the application form, you will need to have your SAT or ACT scores sent to Colby, along with your high school transcript. In lieu of the composite scores, you may submit three scores from SAT areas of your choice. The school has a foreign language requisite that you can fulfill by scoring 640 or more on the SAT foreign language test, and you can elect that as one of your three tests. If you take the ACT test, the school encourages you to include the writing proficiency component. You have to register for this separately.
Interviews are encouraged as well. If you are a high school student applying for early admission to the school, you must interview with a member of the admissions staff. In addition, you have to demonstrate that you have the support of your high school and your parents in leaving secondary education before you graduate. Admissions priority is given to first-year students, but transfer students are encouraged to apply if they have a strong academic and personal record. Veterans may apply for advanced standing through the courses completed at service schools, but Colby College does not grant credit for military experience.
Tuition and Financial Aid
The comprehensive cost of an education at Colby College is $30,865. That includes tuition, room and board, fees, Colby’s non-refundable $300 enrollment deposit and the Outdoor Orientation Program fee of $275. There is also a $500 deposit for study-abroad programs. If you decide to live in an apartment, the college will reimburse $3,685 per semester. College is expensive, and you will probably need financial aid to cover your expenses. Forty percent of Colby students receive financial aid, and the average package is $42,858.
If you need tuition and expense assistance, your first step is to complete a FAFSA form. The Free Application for Federal Student Aid collects financial information about you and your family and uses it to calculate your anticipated contribution to the cost of your education. It then fits you with federal grants and loans to pay for college. You will receive your awards letter within about two-to-three weeks. The next step is to apply for grants and scholarships. There are private and corporate resources, but this is one area where Colby’s innovation stands out. The school has a “no-loan” policy. It awards more than $30 million in grants each year. In addition, it has hundreds of job opportunities to help you meet your obligations. If you meet the eligibility requirements, the college will cover 100 percent of your education cost with these resources so that you do not graduate with student debt. Some students choose to take out loans to defray their family contribution even more, and Colby has payment plans to ease the financial stress of this decision as well.
Online Degrees Available
Colby College does not offer online degrees. It does have a program called “Moodle” that is an online portal for students to manage their course material and to interact with faculty. The school has many fine traditional programs, however, like the Independent Major Degree that allows you to design your own degree program. More than 70 percent of Colby students elect to study abroad in France, Spain or Russia before they graduate. The study-abroad opportunities include language acquisition and other programs, even oceanography.
Perhaps none showcases the innovative nature of Colby better than its Psychology Department, which features labs where you can volunteer, work as a paid research assistant or do independent research. If you choose a major in psychology, you have two options, a general major in psychology or a psychology major with a concentration in neuroscience. The degrees begin, after the first two years of liberal arts courses, with the same required core classes: Introduction to Psychology; Research Methods; Statistics I and II and the Senior Integrated Seminar. Once these requirements are satisfied, the innovation begins. The requisites are organized like a Chinese restaurant menu, in two illustrations. For the general psychology degree, for instance, you will take two courses from a list including the following: Biological Basis of Behavior; Cognitive; Drugs, Brain and Behavior; Theories of Learning and Human Neuropsychology. You also choose two courses from a grouping that includes Social Psychology; personality and Psychology; Abnormal Psychology; Health Psychology; Cultural Psychology and Lifespan Development.
The third section of “take-two’s” contains seminar and collaborative research options. If you choose the neuroscience concentration, your options come from groupings that include many of the same courses and additional offerings that are foundational to your minor. Some of these are: The Cellular Basis of Behavior; Evolution and Diversity and Neuro Biology. You will also be required to take Biological Basics of Behavior. The concentration also requires students to take courses that are seminars and collaborative research classes. Because networking, connecting and gaining experience are invaluable when starting your career, students are encouraged to take internships and to do community volunteerism, but these are not required. If you are the kind of student who likes to take the “road less traveled, a degree program from Colby College might be a great fit.