College of the Atlantic Top Questions

Most students here are open-minded and friendly. The student body is increasingly young, and is fairly average. The standout quality of the student body is that it's small! That can be good and that can be bad.

Friendly, kind hearted, helpful, passionate, unique, beautiful souls from all walks of life.

Students are generally weird. Being attracted to this non-traditional education requires you to be mature and quirky. While there may be social cliques, there is no social order, and the geekiest of geeks hangs out with our closest thing to a jock (I guess our tobaggoning team). Most people are very intelligent and open-minded. Don't be surprised if you get challenged for a particular viewpoint. While leftist points of view are the norm, we do have the occasional conservative and you'd be surprised how some students view things such as abortion, states rights, etc. It's hard to stereotype our student body because it is quite diverse and varied.

My classmates are curious, engaged, intellectual, friendly, motivated, caring people.

COA has a large percentage of international students from United World Colleges. Among the student body there is a distinct divide between the students who are actively involved and really committed to their learning and those who are just here. Faculty acknowledge this divide. However if you are one of these students who wish to take their education and run with it you will find peers who are looking to do the same thing. It is frustrating some days to have this divide because in discussion based classes it is evident who knows their stuff and who doesn't. If you are not prepared to read and write and question everything, do not come here. But if you sat in high school wishing for something more and thinking there are better ways to learn then COA might be right for you.