Student Support

Our proximity to the Bard College main campus affords our students a rare window onto college life. Each year we bring our students to attend presentations and conferences at the The Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities.

Additionally, two students are nominated annually to represent our program in the Bard Early College Network Student Council.  

All students at Bard Early College Hudson Valley participate in The College Experience, a weekly course dedicated to choosing, applying to, and financing college. The spring semester  examines characterics of a successful college student–what it means to be part of an academic community as well as effective habits of mind.

The College Experience also provides:

• Intensive college counseling and credit transfer support to assist students in successfully applying to the college of their choice. 
• Visits to college campuses to learn of a wide range of higher education options. In recent years the BEC Hudson Valley students have visited:
  
  Bard College
  Marist College
  Purchase College
  Sarah Lawrence
  Union College
  Vassar College
  Trinity College
  University at Albany

• Information regarding special scholarship opportunities, including the ECO (Early College Opportunity) scholarship offered by Bard College. Only students from Bard’s Early College programs are eligible to apply for ECO scholarships, which are based on both merit and financial need and cover full tuition for four years at Bard.
• Project-based learning opportunities for civic engagement. As part of their college preparation process, students undertake a year-long project in which they identify areas of need within their local community and craft actionable plans of improvement to address them.
• Targeted, one-on-one academic assistance from Bard MAT graduate students (future teachers) who can assist students with their academic coursework as well as college plans and essays.