Joining the inaugural Outer Coast two-year class is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help shape the institution for years to come — a moment in our history in which the governance decisions you make as a class have the potential to carry particularly significant weight. That said, you won’t be completely without guardrails! You’ll benefit from the college-building knowledge and experience accumulated over the past several years, throughout which Outer Coast has run Year and Summer Seminar programs.
Outer Coast prepares students for all kinds of pathways.
To date, our alumni have matriculated to a wide range of postsecondary institutions, including Alaska Pacific University, Brown, Claremont McKenna, Cornell, Deep Springs, Evergreen State, Fort Lewis, Harvard, MIT, Penn, Pomona, Reed, Smith, Tufts, UA Fairbanks, UC – Santa Cruz, Western Washington, and Yale. Other students are working, learning trades, or living with their families and engaging in issues in their home communities. Read more about our alumni here.
Outer Coast serves a student body that is national and international in breadth and diverse in many ways, including racial, ethnic, cultural, and gender identities, and socioeconomic status. Outer Coast emphasizes reaching students from across Alaska, particularly Alaska Natives and rural Alaskans, as well as other high-potential students from backgrounds underrepresented and underserved in American higher education.
Up to twenty students will join our inaugural Outer Coast two-year class in 2024. When the second undergraduate class matriculates in August of 2025, the Student Body will be made up of forty students in total.
No, not yet. Outer Coast is authorized as a postsecondary institution by the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education (ACPE) and, as of the 2024-2025 academic year, confers credit through our partnership with University of Alaska Southeast.
Students who attend Outer Coast as a member of the inaugural two-year class will receive two full years of college credit and a transcript from University of Alaska Southeast. They will be able to transfer with junior standing to a four-year university to finish their undergraduate degree.
Outer Coast will welcome our first two-year undergraduate class in August of 2024. We continue to pursue an accreditation pathway through becoming a branch campus of an already accredited institution as a first step to obtaining independent college status from a regional accrediting body. Read more about our history and where we’re headed here.
While we do ask for academic transcripts, there are no prerequisites for Outer Coast. Academic curiosity and persistence are key to student success at Outer Coast; sustained academic excellence in prior coursework is not.
Due to the small size of the Outer Coast community, our staff and faculty can support students with a variety of learning styles and differences and provide the resources they need in order to be successful. That said, Outer Coast does not have a professional, in-house specialist for students with disabilities or learning disorders, and the intensive cohort-based model may not be a fit for all students.
Because a significant part of what makes Outer Coast a unique institution is its cohort-based model and emphasis on service and self-governance alongside academics, we do not permit students to accelerate their graduation by applying prior credits to Outer Coast. On a case-by-case basis, we will evaluate whether students can use prior credits to fulfill distributional requirements.
No, there are no majors at Outer Coast. That said, students with particular academic or professional interests can build knowledge in specific subject areas through elective coursework and/or through service or research opportunities.
The faculty at Outer Coast is composed of permanent faculty members, who include Academic Dean Matthew Spellberg and Indigenous Studies Chair Yeidikook’áa. Each semester, we also hire visiting faculty members from other institutions, several of whom come back to teach with us again.
Seminars at Outer Coast are small and intimate. Classes that are taken as a cohort could include up to twenty students; electives may be much smaller. The largest classes will the entire cohort is made up of twenty students each year.
In the first year, the curriculum consists mostly of required courses. In the second year, students take some required courses and some electives, and also undertake a set of independent, semester-long projects (capstones in food sovereignty, storytelling, and making/writing), each of which will be closely advised by core faculty. The academic curriculum at Outer Coast is marked by a blending of Indigenous and Western knowledge systems, and both required courses and elective courses span many disciplines, such as Indigenous studies, Tlingit language and oral literature, writing, studio art, ecology and biology, philosophy, engineering, and math.
Electives that could be on offer at Outer Coast include courses on oral literature, neuroscience and sleep, the history of nonviolence, economies of rural Alaska, studio art, and field ecology.
Students come together for weekly Student Body (SB) meetings to make decisions that will shape their experience in the program. Students determine their own agenda for these meetings and choose how they will structure discussion and voting systems. Self-governance provides real-stakes practice for organizing a community.
Self-governance does not mean making decisions in isolation: students build their community with close support from staffulty and are guided by past students on effective ways to take advantage of their agency.
During SB meetings, students will answer questions like:
What are our community values?
Who should we invite for this week’s Community Hour?
How should we allocate our student governance budget?
How should we carry forward service partnerships from previous programs?
There have been some students who aren’t showing up for class prepared — how do we want to address this as a community?
Read more about self-governance at Outer Coast here.
In the Outer Coast undergraduate program, students build long-term individual relationships with partner nonprofit, government, and tribal institutions, collaborating on projects that meet the needs of the Sitka community. Service projects will always be meaningful collaborations with local organizations that add substantial volunteer power to the community of Sitka. Many service projects involve physical labor but can be made accessible for all abilities.
In the Summer Seminar program, students primarily work on group service projects in the Sitka community. Past projects have included working with the US Forest Service and a local trail crew to lay boulders, rocks, and gravel along Káasda Héen (the Indian River Trail); working at the Sitka Sound Science Center to collect marine debris and collaborate with their education team; and hosting a barbeque and talent show for the elderly residents of Sitka’s Pioneer Home.
Read more about service at Outer Coast here.
Sitka is known for its year-round wet weather. The summers are cool and mostly cloudy with consistent rain and typical temperatures ranging from 50˚F-60˚F. The winters are dark with temperatures that hover around freezing, but typically don’t dip below 25˚F. Over the course of the year the temperature typically varies from 33°F to 62°F. Southeast Alaskans like to joke that the temperatures never get more than 20˚ outside of 45˚F.
Incoming students will receive a comprehensive packing list in order to prepare for their arrival in Sitka.
Students live in shared dormitory-style rooms in Sweetland Hall on the Sitka Fine Arts campus and have access to a variety of shared common spaces. All weekday meals and snacks are provided, and students prepare their own meals in the student kitchen on weekends. For gym access, students may purchase passes to the nearby Hames Center, and subsidized passes are provided for students who require financial assistance. Read more about campus here.
Sitka is a pedestrian-friendly community, and the vast majority of activities will not require the use of an additional vehicle. Many students also opt to bike around town: The Salty Spoke Bike Co-op sells used bicycles at affordable rates. For group excursions as well as trips to the grocery store, we have a dedicated program vehicle. We do not encourage students to bring personal motor vehicles to campus.
Commercial flights arrive at the Rocky Gutierrez Airport in Sitka, just a mile away from campus.
Sitka is connected by direct flight to major cities and towns in Alaska as well as to Seattle and other transit hubs in the lower 48.
Yes. That said, students at Outer Coast are expected to be fully engaged across the three pillars in the intensive cohort model, and a job may make it challenging to maintain one’s commitments to the learning and living community at Outer Coast.
Sitka is a haven of hiking, sea kayaking, trail running, and biking. Adventurous folks may find bouldering and climbing opportunities on often rain-soaked and mossy rock. Additional opportunities abound to go berry picking, foraging, bird watching and beachcombing. We have a small but growing outdoor gear library and trail directory and encourage students to connect with the land through outdoor recreation during their time at Outer Coast.
Sitka is a Southeast Alaskan town of roughly 8,500 residents on Baranof Island and the traditional lands of the Tlingit people. For some students, Sitka may be larger than the place they call home; for others, it might be the smallest community they have been a part of. Nestled between the mountains and the sea, it is known for its extraordinary natural beauty, rich cultural heritage, and extensive outdoor opportunities, which include a network of maintained trails as well as opportunities to kayak and boat. Many residents of Sitka have lived here for multiple generations; others come for seasonal employment opportunities like commercial fishing. Local news is maintained between The Sitka Sentinel and KCAW Raven Radio. Popular hangout spots include local pizza parlor Mean Queen, Sitka Pel’meni, Backdoor Cafe, and Wildflour Cafe. Community events and cultural opportunities are often posted on the KCAW Community Calendar.
Read more about health and wellbeing at Outer Coast here.
Institutionalized clubs or organizations of the kind that you might find at another college or university don’t exist in the same way at Outer Coast. Students are given the space and opportunity through formal channels to make committees for specific ends, and have significant latitude to devise other projects and convenings of their choosing, both within the Outer Coast community or with collaborators elsewhere.
Students will receive personalized mentorship with members of the staffulty team to discuss and prepare for their post-Outer Coast plans, whether that be applying to college or looking for jobs.
No. Outer Coast’s cohort model necessitates that students cohabitate in our dorms.
Yes, you should complete the FAFSA. We take a flexible and human-centered approach to financial aid, which entails a personal conversation between Outer Coast and each admitted student/family to determine a personalized cost of attendance that takes their precise financial situation into account; the FAFSA is the starting point for this conversation.
We are committed to making Outer Coast affordable and will cover full demonstrated financial need for all admitted students. The full cost of attendance is $45,000 per year, which includes tuition, room and board books, and fees. Most students will not pay the full amount.
We have concluded admissions decisions for our priority and first-round applicants for the 2024-2025 year and are presently reviewing applications on a rolling basis.
A team of Outer Coast staff will read your application and conduct interviews in 2024. In 2025, the inaugural class of ’26 will participate significantly in the application review and interview process for the incoming class of ’27.
For all applications submitted by January 31, finalists will receive invitations to interview by Friday, February 16 and will receive an admissions notification by Sunday, March 31. Applications received after January 31 will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
Absolutely not. Performance on standardized tests and prior history of sustained academic excellence are not prerequisites for success at Outer Coast. Outer Coast seeks curious students eager to invest time and effort into their education and community.
Applicants who are selected as finalists are welcome to visit campus over a dedicated finalists’ weekend from March 16 to March 17, 2024. If you are interested in visiting before then, we would be excited to coordinate a visit with you. Please reach out to reyn@outercoast.org.
We will host finalists for visits and in-person interviews the weekend of March 16-17 on the Outer Coast campus in Sitka. Financial support toward the cost of travel will be available to students who need it. Virtual interviews will be conducted for any student who is not able to participate in person. Your decision to interview either in person in Sitka or remotely via Zoom or another platform will not affect admission decisions. Rather, the invitation to visit campus serves as an opportunity for prospective students to gain a clearer sense of whether Outer Coast’s community will be a good fit for them.
Please reach out to Appcomm@outercoast.org.
As of the 2024-2025 year, we are not able to sponsor visas or enroll international students at Outer Coast, but we are working towards being able to do so soon. If you’re interested in learning more about our progress, please be in touch at info@outercoast.org.
We look for applicants who want more from their education and are genuinely, insatiably curious to learn about themselves and others. We seek students who can rise to the occasion to create a meaningful academic and social community, and who are empathetic, resilient, and inclusive forces amongst their peers.
Outer Coast does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, nationality, ethnicity, creed, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation.
High school graduates and/or GED holders are eligible to apply for the Undergraduate Program. Rising high school juniors and seniors are eligible to apply for the Summer Seminar, as well as graduating seniors from Alaska.
We are currently not able to sponsor visas or enroll international students at Outer Coast, but we are working towards being able to do so soon. If you’re interested in learning more about our progress, please be in touch at info@outercoast.org.
No, we do not. In our recruitment efforts, we focus on reaching Alaska Native students, rural Alaskans, and other students who have been historically marginalized by higher education.
Yes, you can; details can be discussed during an admitted student’s personalized cost of attendance conversation.
Yes. However, since Outer Coast serves as the equivalent of a student’s first two years of college, an applicant should not have already obtained their Bachelors degree.
Outer Coast programs have no fixed cost of attendance and admissions are need-blind. After a student is admitted to an Outer Coast program, we work with the individual students and their families to establish a cost of attendance based on their household’s financial means. Read more about cost and affordability here.
Summer Seminar students currently take coursework for credit through our course crediting partner, Alaska Pacific University. Students can earn two general education credits from the Summer Seminar, and are transferable to most other institutions of higher education. However, transfer of credit from one institution to another is made at the discretion of the receiving school and depends on the comparability of curricula and accreditation. For this reason, no school, nor specific program, can guarantee that credits are transferable to another institution.
Rising high school juniors and seniors are eligible to apply for the Summer Seminar, as well as graduating seniors from Alaska.
The Summer Seminar ranges from 25-32 students.