One of the best colleges in the country is in California—and it’s probably not what you’re thinking. Deep Springs College, a tiny, all-male two-year college and cattle ranch tucked away on a remote location east of the Sierra Nevada, is considered so exclusive, its graduates are practically guaranteed admissions at many of America’s Ivy League schools.
Update November 17, 2006
Eric Vandenbrink is attending Yale and is pursuing his interest in state power and agriculture. He worked on an archeological excavation in northeastern Syria where he studied the Akkadian Empire, the first state based on the regular taxation of agricultural surplus.
For the last several months, he’s been collecting data for his Sociology senior essay on indebtedness in rural Southeast Asia. He spent two months in Cambodia conducting an assessment of 200 villages for an agricultural infrastructure and flood mitigation project and will go to Burma to work on a similar project there.
He will return to Yale in January 2007 for his final semester.
Nathan Leamy, upon transferring to Oberlin College, received the Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Scholarship. He’s set to graduate in December 2006 with a major in history and minors in Comparative American Studies and politics.
He’s currently working in Washington DC for Food and Water Watch, a non-profit public interest group which promotes local and sustainable food systems, and hopes to return to DC to find work in a similar field upon graduation.
Deep Springs College installed a solar energy system in March 2006 which has reduced electrical costs and taken care of the campus’ electrical needs.
When we originally aired this story in 2004, the student body was primarily white males. Currently, the student body includes two foreign students from Nigeria and China.
President Jack Newell retired in June 30, 2004. He is currently a professor at the University of Utah where he teaches History and Philosophy of Higher Education and Leadership Ethics. He is still writing the history of Deep Springs College.
Ross Peterson has been President of Deep Springs since the summer of 2004.
- Deep Springs College
- Notes on Deep Springs College, an alumnus reminisces
- The Telluride Association, related program for high school students