- Home
- Early College
- Understanding Early College
Understanding Early College
Simon’s Rock is college now for motivated younger students ready to realize their intellectual and creative potential.
Our students typically enter Simon’s Rock after finishing 10th or 11th grade, which means that they skip the last year or two of high school and arrive at Simon’s Rock without diplomas. They make a deliberate break from the standard academic track to dive straight into college at an age when most of their peers are just heading into their junior or senior years of high school.
But Simon’s Rock is not some kind of “halfway” college or an unconventional prep school. It’s a rigorous institution accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, part of the prestigious Bard network, and regularly recognized for its excellence (ranked #7 in the Princeton Review’s top 20 schools with the most highly rated faculty; ranked #4 for the most innovative school and #5 for best undergraduate teaching by U.S. News & World Report.; students awarded 10 Fulbright fellowships since 2010).
We know this path is not for everyone, but for those who make the leap, choosing early college at Simon’s Rock has been demonstrated over 50 years to give our students a head start on finding and pursuing their passions — and to set them up for a lifetime of personal and professional success.
Early College Ready
The time to undertake a challenging interdisciplinary college program is the moment a young person is most curious about the world, most driven to ask big questions, and flexible enough in their thinking to make profound connections. For many bright students, that time comes well before a conventional high school track allows.
At Simon’s Rock, our students thrive because they are given the chance to do challenging work in an engaged community at the moment they are ready for it.
Defining “Early College”
“Early college” is a term used to describe a number of different programs. By “early college” some people may mean AP classes or IB programs, or dual enrollment at a high school and college. It is also sometimes used to describe a situation in which a student graduates early and enrolls in college classes with an older cohort.
Early college at Simon’s Rock is different.
If it’s the right decision for you, you’ll leave high school (a diploma isn’t required) and start college.
Deciding if early college is right for your child? Listen to the stories of other Simon’s Rock families.
The admission process is just that — a process. We’ll work together to decide if the right time for college is now.
“I think it’s a really bold move to do something different. It’s a big leap to make, but once you’re here, there’s so much support that it feels like an easy transition.”
— Amanda ’11
The Full College Experience
Simon’s Rock is a small, intensive college of the liberal arts and sciences specifically designed to offer students a broad-minded, paradigm-shifting college education after the 10th or 11th grade. We take young minds seriously enough to offer a full college experience beyond what they might get from an AP/IB class or a test that duplicates college textbook material, plus a large (and ever-evolving) selection of special programs, internships, and study-abroad opportunities.
See for yourself what the academic experience at Simon’s Rock looks like.
A Community of Peers
Support Where It Counts
Our students benefit from the guidance of talented and dedicated faculty and the support of experienced Student Life staff. It’s a support system thoughtfully conceived to help younger college students find their footing and make their way into adulthood.
Fifty Years of Early College Innovation
Fifty years ago, Simon’s Rock was founded as the nation’s first early college, and we’ve been an innovative leader ever since. We are a proud member of the Bard network, and have helped shape a vision for early college that sets the highest standards for excellence and exceeds expectations for student support.
“[Our society] delay[s] a serious engagement with intellectual material — science, art, literature, history — too long. And so, when they arrive at college at 18, in my view, we have lost some of the best years of the life of a young person who wants to learn.”
— Leon Botstein,
President of Bard College at Simon’s Rock