Alumni Successes
Life after Summerfield Waldorf School & Farm
Waldorf education provides a well-rounded foundation as our students move out and about into the world to attend diverse colleges and universities and to work in many different professions. The Survey of Waldorf Graduates, conducted by David Mitchell and Douglas Gerwin, indicates that Waldorf Education is achieving the following in its graduates:
Click here for a partial list of colleges and universities where Summerfield Waldorf High School graduates have been accepted
Link to the AWSNA Waldorf Graduates in the World Website
- Multiple Intelligences and Cross Disciplinary Learners
- Global Consciousness and Sustainability
- Basis for Moral Navigation
- Creative Problem Solving
- High Levels of Social Intelligence
- Environmental Stewardship
- High Levels of Emotional Intelligence
- Thinkers Who Think Outside the Box
- According to this recent study of Waldorf graduates:
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- 94% attended college or university
- 47% chose humanities or arts as a major
- 42% chose sciences or math as a major
- 89% are highly satisfied in choice of occupation
- 91% are active in life-long education
- 92% placed a high value on critical thinking
- 90% highly values tolerance of other viewpoints
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Where Are Waldorf Students Accepted and Where Do They Go?
“The simple answer is, ‘everywhere.’ They go to schools from Amherst to Yale, from the University of Maine to the University of California at San Diego. They go to local community colleges and to elite Ivy League universities. Some go to design schools, music, visual and performing art schools.”
– Excerpt from “Life After Waldorf High School” by Abraham Entin, published by AWSNA
What are the Paths our Students take after Studying at Summerfield?
By Beth Weisburn, High School Math Teacher
A Summerfield education prepares student for life, to be healthy and fully engaged in meaningful activity at age 35, 50 and beyond. This looks different for each individual student and the paths they take are diverse. Most students engage in some type of advanced training or education. Many take a gap year for travel and volunteer work right after graduating. Some enter college or university immediately, with a career goal in mind. A significant percentage enter professions in science, technology and social services.
What do SWSF graduates do in the years just after high school? To get a sense of this, I took a “snapshot” of one class: the graduates from 2015. I sent out an email to the addresses used for senior project work, heard from some parents, and researched via social media and the internet. In a very short time, using these methods I was able to find some information for 22 of the 25 students.
Most (22) attended training programs, college or university, including:
- American University, Washington DC, now Brooklyn Law School
- Claremont McKenna College
- Dörthe Krause Institut, Herdecke, Germany
- Laguna College of Art and Design
- Linfield College
- Penn State
- Santa Rosa Junior College
- Seattle University
- Sonoma State University
- Western Washington University
- Willamette University
- University of Colorado, Boulder
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of California, Los Angeles
- University of California, Santa Cruz (1 year)
- University of Puget Sound (3 students)
- University of Redlands
- University of St. Andrews
- University of Victoria
Although not all students responded with their major, those who did included:
Sciences: Masters in Chemistry, Biology, minor in Math, Communication Sciences and Disorders (Audiology), Integrative Psychology, Kinesiology (Physical Therapy), Molecular Environmental Biology, Nursing (2 students), and Physics and Math
Humanities or Social Sciences: Economics and Philosophy, History, Political Science, Pre-law, law internships in the criminal justice system, Public relations/Advertising: Strategic Communications, Sociology with Legal Studies, Spanish minor, Interdisciplinary: Science, Tech and Society, and German Studies
Art/Performance: Game Art, Theatre
These students are just finishing up with school —as they are 4 years out of high school. Eleven students have graduated, five more are planning to graduate this year, one is taking a break from school to join the Coast Guard this winter, one attended school for one year and then began working, and I did not find graduation dates for four students.
Four students are immediately applying to graduate school—one to Law School, one for Physical Therapy, one for Audiology, and one for Chemistry. In addition, two are working in research labs—one in Physics designing a perovskite-based thermochromic solar window, and a second in Biology working in a non-profit medical scientific research center.
One student attended a circus training, and is one of three students now working in Sonoma County. Another student presently manages a creative team for video productions for an online tutoring company. Two students did not respond, and I could find no information about their work or schooling after Summerfield.
Notice that 9 students majored in the sciences, representing half of the total number of majors reported!
SWSF students are creative in the paths they take, in this time of rising college tuition costs. In recent years, several have attended the Santa Rosa Junior College for two years, and then transferred to universities such as Berkeley and UCLA to complete their four-year degrees. In some instances, these students have graduated debt free! Other students go directly to liberal arts colleges across the country where they receive substantial scholarship support or financial aid. Most students are accepted to one of their top choices of college or university. More importantly, four or five years later, many are still attending school or have graduated.
