nice
> each no larger than 17 people
good
> with no electives all 4 years
wait, wtf?
I guess if their curriculum works for your kids, great, but one-size-fits-all isn't a straitjacket I would have been interested in post-high school.
arguably has a more discussion-oriented approach to learning, definitely has smaller classes, and has a rich supply of elective classes. And it's for high school-age students rather than for college-age students. We are also a homeschooling family, but we thought long and hard about sending our oldest son to Exeter (which also has great financial aid) before continuing to homeschool him. We may revisit the issue of how to do secondary education with each of our other three children. Our oldest is now applying for colleges--every college on his application list is a research university with strong programs in mathematics and computer science (and, yes, lots of elective course possibilities).
They had just completed what was the equivalent of most college degrees today, and were looking at another 4 years of even more intense work. Most of them just sat around their oriental-draped rooms in deep club chairs and smoked weed. ;-)
But the one-track curriculum is based off the trivium and quadrivium of medieval education, where you don't have electives but regardless, you get a well-rounded education because they're preparing you to think and inquire. So every student studies Greek, Latin, French, Western classical music, mathematics from the source (like Euclid's Elements and Newton's Principia), physics from the source, chemistry, history, etc. No modern textbooks rehashing information, so theoretically, no passive learning. So this curriculum isn't really a straitjacket.
The one downside is that you're not getting a very multicultural or contemporary view, given that you're reading the Western canon largely pre-World War II. But it's not such a big problem if you again realize that the idea with this education is that you're being trained not in subjects but in the ability to go out and find what you don't know in the classroom on your own and to discuss these new ideas with other people.