RIME has a particular reputation amongst American wizarding schools as one of the premier institutions for students with an interest in Herbology and/or Magizoology. RIME’s founder and his descendents had a great interest in maintaining a symbiotic relationship between the school and the surrounding natural environment. Naoki Maruyama’s love of California’s rugged coasts and forests influenced his decision to make the protection of both magic and mundane animals native to northern California one of the missions of the institution. RIME alumni were instrumental in pushing the non-magical government to designate many of the areas where Redwood trees grow as national parks and preserves.
In their first year, students are required to sign up to hand-raise a injured or abandoned nonmagical or semimagical creature native to the surrounding environment of RIME. They are expected to attend to the care of these animals without the use of magic. Common choices for students include everything from beetles, falcons, owls, deer, and rabbits to the endangered California Condor, California Sea Otter and Mountain Lion. This exercise teaches students responsibility for wildlife, an understanding of their place within the natural ecosystem, and helps them bond with fellow classmates. Students with like animals often band together to take turns in caretaking duties and swap secrets for helping their animals grow up healthy, strong, and ready to be reintroduced to the wild. If their animal reaches maturity or is healed before the end of their tenure, students are encouraged (though not required) to take on the care of a new animal.
Students attend RIME from the age of ten onwards, and are required to spend at least half their summers at the school so that they can care for their animal companions (though the school gives a particularly long winter break in order to compensate for the time spent at school over the summer). Students receive their notice of selection through firecall from one of the numerous faculty members of the RIME school. Students of any nation may apply for selection to RIME, they need only send in the name of the student by the student’s fifth birthday. Courses at RIME are currently offered only in English, but the school is considering (due to considerable interest) offering magical translating services for both Asian and Latin American students.
Due to its close association with its natural environment and with the animals that populate that environment, it is unsurprising that RIME boasts the largest number of students that become animagi. Demand for instruction on animagus magic was high enough that in the 1960s, RIME began to offer a two-year course on the transformation magic for those that scored high enough on their Transfiguration exams.
Students are required to take core subjects (Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, Magical History, Creature Care, and Potions) for the first five years of their tenure at RIME. Defense Against the Dark Arts, according to the educational philosophy of RIME, is not its own subject. This is because RIME believes DADA incorporates various different types of magics which are better taught by faculty specializing in that specific type of magic (i.e. there are defensive charms taught in a traditional DADA class that are, at RIME, a part of the Charms program) After this, they sit an oral and practical set of examinations. Depending upon their scores on these exams they partner with faculty to design their interdisciplinary course load for the last three years of study at RIME, specializing based on their career goals and intellectual aptitudes. At the end of their eighth year, RIME students are expected to propose an addition to magical knowledge in their specialty, either expanding a set of widely held theories, contesting them, inventing a new spell, potion etc. or demonstrating a new application of existing magical theory.
RIME offers the following subjects to advanced students in their final two years, along with the ability to combine courses under the watchful eye of a faculty advisor:
--Advanced Transfiguration
Human Transfiguration and Animagus Advance Class
--Advanced Herbology
Herbological Research and Theory
Herbological Cultivation and Preservation
--Advanced Potions
Experimental Potions
Potioning Theory
--Advanced Charms
--Combat Magic (Including Defensive and Offensive Spells and Serving as a Training Course for a Career in Magical Law Enforcement)
--Advanced Magical History and Policy
--Advanced Creature Care
History of Creature Care
Magizoology Policy
Care of Dangerous Beasts
--Pre-Healer Training
--Advanced Astronomy
--Nonmagic Studies
Nonmagic Sociology and Relations
Nonmagic Technology Adaptation and Integration
The RIME school crest features a Redwood tree with a wand and a quill (which are no longer used in the school) crossed over it and stars above. The school colors are a rusty red (adopted by Maruyama dormitory), a deep green (usually worn by Wood House) and a inky blue-black (most loved by Skyline students).
