Nearly 300 miles east of San Francisco, in a dry high-desert valley just the other side of California’s Sierra Nevada mountain range, sits Deep Springs College — an all-male, liberal arts institution that seeks to “prepare young people for a life of service to humanity . . . by bringing students into intense contact with nature, work and ideas”.

The college was founded exactly 100 years ago by the hydroelectricity tycoon and philanthropist Lucien Lucius Nunn, who believed that this isolated desert wilderness and the American West in general offered rich opportunities for young men to learn autonomy, self-governance and individual virtues. Today, it continues to admit between 12 and 15 students each year; applicants are appraised not only on their academic performance but also on their ability to demonstrate curiosity, self-reflection, a strong work ethic and clear communication skills. Prospective students are called in for interview by a panel of faculty and current students and, once an applicant is accepted, his tuition, room and board are entirely free of charge. After two years at Deep Springs, most graduates tend to continue their studies elsewhere, often at elite universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge. Read More