Conway School of Landscape Design-Link to home map of Conway, MA Graduate Program in Sustainable Landscape Planning and Design

Housing, Health Insurance, Foreign Students

Housing

Most students rent rooms, apartments or houses in the Conway area for their year of study. The school keeps a limited list of available rentals. Individuals make their own arrangements, usually during the summer before school starts. Some students bring their partners and/or children to the area for the year. Others, having home bases within a few hours’ drive from school, elect to become weekend commuters.

Those from long distances are sometimes separated from their families, except during holidays, for the 10-month school year. Since public transportation is not available, students need the use of a car during their year. Within a half-hour drive of Conway, students can find supplies and services, professional consultants, recreational facilities, bookstores, natural food stores, pharmacies, hospitals and clinics, theatres, and excellent restaurants.

Students also have access to town and college libraries, including that of the University of Massachusetts which, as a land grant college, also provides many non-academic resources which relate to landscape design, including the Cooperative Extension Service, a soil testing center, the Massachusetts Data Bank, and the Earth Science Information Office which has extensive land use maps of the region.

Franklin, Hampshire, and Hampden Counties are home to regional resources such as the Natural Resource Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and regional planning agencies.

Health Insurance

Massachusetts law requires that all full and part time students enrolled in a college, university or other institute of higher learning in the state must participate in a school sponsored health insurance plan or another alternate plan with comparable coverage. Students must purchase the school sponsored health plan or show proof of comparable coverage in an alternate health plan in order to enroll.

Foreign Students Welcome

We encourage foreign students to apply because we think they can add significantly to our learning community. There is no special application for such applicants; the standard admission procedure is followed, except that TOEFL scores may be required. Our program emphasizes communication as well as technical studies, and requires frequent public speaking and extensive writing in fluent, idiomatic English. In general, we consider the writing and public speaking demands too rigorous for students who are not fluent in English.

NON-DISCRIMINATORY POLICY The Conway School of Landscape Design, Inc., a Massachusetts non-profit corporation organized under Chapter 180 of the General Laws, is a training school of landscape design and land use planning. As an equal opportunity institution, we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national or ethnic origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, marital or veteran status in the administration of educational, admissions, employment, or loan policies, or in any other school-administered program.