I’d say there are a handful of potential downsides, but the weight of each will depend on the individual. These are:

• Very little name-brand recognition, which can make it really hard to apply to certain internships. Minerva is growing its network, but there will always be companies who haven’t heard of it, which can provide varying levels of difficulty: i.e. if you need to select your school on a dropdown list, Minerva will almost never be an option. Usually, the Keck Graduate Institute (the Claremont Consortium school MSKGI is associate with) isn’t listed either. If “other” isn’t an option, you’re kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place.
• Poor accountability for checking in on student health. My friend’s liver failed, and because you literally never Have To leave your room, they never encountered a human to tell them they should seek medical help. Now, the contact you do have with professors could solve this, but missing class never results in someone reaching out to check on you. This is normal for college, but might need some revision for Minerva’s model (and from recent updates to academic policy, it seems that attempts are being made to change this).
• Minerva is constantly updating policies to try and incentivize specific behavior from students. But, this isn’t always done with student input, and at times it feels like we are on a long road of trial-and-error that has resulted in a lot of errors thus far.
• Minerva’s work study program makes the academic load even more unbearable. But, because this is part of financial aid and most students in the program rely on it to buy life necessities, like food, you have to prioritize it. This can be very damaging if you have serious illness, physical or mental, that impairs you from working. Because, while you are inevitably falling behind academically, you are also acutely aware that if you don’t work, you will have to beg friends for food next week. On top of that, these work study roles are far from glamorous in most instances, and it can be grueling to spend the 10–12 hours on it each week while you are also stressing about academics and other commitments. I don’t expect Minerva to offer us amazing jobs, as work-study is financial aid, and is not known to be the “job of a lifetime”. However, despite complex matching and application processes, it is very possible to end up in a role you are unsuited for, and you have no choice but to take it. On most campuses, you would apply to jobs directly, and they would pay you with work-study funding. At Minerva, you get a single job offer, and if you don’t take it, you will not receive any of the financial aid it was meant to cover. Again, this process continues to be changed to try and serve us better, but it is unclear when the trial-and-error process will result in success, and even then it is impossible for 100% of students to end up in an optimal situation.
• The adult world sucks, and no one around you knows what they are doing either. Also, it’s not clear who you even could ask for help, if you decided you really needed to consult someone on these issues. I took the extent to which independence would be a shock for granted. But, if you really think about it, being solely responsible for yourself is a lot. Have you ever grocery shopped? Do you know how to budget? Have you planned a full week of meals? Called an insurance company? Most college kids would have this taken care of by a meal plan and on-campus health center. At Minerva, you could have a complete breakdown over any one of these, and literally never leave your room or be forced to encounter someone you could talk about it with. And it’s possible that no one would notice. The first semester will put you living with a hundred or so strangers, in a city you’ve never been in, with responsibilities you’ve never had. The adjustment period, I think, is worse than the average college student’s experience.
• The adult world gets even more challenging in a Foreign Country. With a foreign language, and a foreign currency, and a foreign culture, and foreign foods, and foreign social constructs. I haven’t even left my home country yet, and I am freaking out about how I’m going to manage to survive, let alone “thrive” as Minerva expects us to, in Seoul.
• On that note, there is no way you will speak the native language enough to be fully functional in all 7 cities. There is no support for language learning, besides maybe some lists of key vocabulary.
• You will find that cooperative projects can be a challenge, because there is not a lot of “free time” to go around and everyone has different priorities and schedules. So, while it seems like you should be able to do a ton of cool stuff with all your cool classmates, this becomes a really difficult thing in reality.
• You will struggle to interact with normal people after the first year (if not the first semester). The academics are supposed to change the way they think, and generally that really works. The problem is, that most people aren’t used to being called out for thinking in a way that is flawed, and you will also struggle to explain exactly what is wrong with what they’re saying, as you are used to interacting with Minervans who have a shared vernacular for calling each other out. This also extends into general mannerisms that are unique to the Minerva community. Personally, I’m not too upset about this one, and it’s more of a temporary annoyance than anything. Hopefully, after a couple more years of practice, we’ll be able to move more smoothly between the Minerva vernacular, and regular English.

Now, with all that being said, I am still enrolled at Minerva and really excited to start my second year of study in Seoul in a couple weeks. The reasons for this are:

1. Minerva does want the best for students, and is constantly seeking feedback from us and updating practices to reflect this. So, even if I don’t love how something is being done right now, I view it as something that is likely to change, so I tolerate it for the time being, and speak up about why I think it should be changed. And, since we are such a small school, they are usually willing to work with you if a serious problem arises for you personally.
2. I believe in the academic philosophy. I was very rarely challenged and stimulated in my 12 years of public education (which included the IB Diploma Program). At Minerva, I may have struggled to adjust to academics that require real effort from me, but I think this is a far more valuable way to get my B.S. than spending four more years not really getting much out of my classes.
3. I love my fellow students. While the community can be divided at times, I’ve connected with people at Minerva very quickly and very deeply. There isn’t anyone I wouldn’t want to have a Deep & Meaningful Conversation with here, because I’ve found everyone is capable of being very thoughtful and considerate when they take the time to.

When it comes down to it, Minerva students have weighed the pros and cons and decided the harder parts will be worth it. I hope my answer will make it easier for students considering Minerva to get a better idea of the potential cons, as this experience certainly isn’t for everyone.