Info for: Prospective Students · Families · AlumniA fictional college, built for interview practice
Calderwood CollegeAlderbrook, Vermont · Est. 1874

Admissions · Interviews

Small college. Long winters. Serious work.

A residential liberal arts college in the Green Mountains, built around close faculty contact, fieldwork, and a required senior project every student defends in public.

Eight questions. Takes about ten minutes.
1874Founded
1,900Undergraduates
11:1Student–faculty
14Average class

What makes Calderwood

Read these before your interview. They are the things we will ask you about, and the things worth asking us about.

Winterim

A four-week January term where you do one thing only: a field project, an internship, a studio intensive, or independent research. Most students do at least one off campus.

The Calderwood Project

Every senior spends the year on an original project and defends it publicly in the spring. There is no way to graduate quietly.

The Hollis Field Station

340 acres of working forest and wetland twenty minutes from campus, used year-round by environmental studies, biology, and studio art.

The Bell Run

Seniors run from the Quad to the chapel and ring the bell the night before their project defense. It has happened every year since 1919.

Fields of study

  • Environmental Studies
  • Biology
  • Creative Writing
  • History
  • Economics
  • Neuroscience
  • Studio Art
  • Politics

The plain facts

Rural. Alderbrook has 4,000 people, one traffic light, and a bus to Burlington twice a day.
Four-year residential. Nearly everyone lives on campus all four years.
Average class is 14. The largest lecture on campus seats 60.
Every student is assigned a faculty advisor in week one and keeps them until they declare a major.
Test-optional since 2019.
Interviews are optional and evaluative — they are read alongside the application.
Two 14-week semesters with Winterim in between.

Calderwood isn't for everyone

Interviews are optional. Take one anyway.

Sit down with one of our admissions officers for eight questions, then get an honest read on how you came across — the parts that landed, the parts that sounded like everyone else, and what to ask next time.