[3] Carlbrook's mission statement was to help students discover, internalize and effectively utilize the intellectual and personal resources necessary to succeed in college and in life.

[11] Admission to Carlbrook was selective, focusing on students of high aptitude and potential who had struggled academically or socially in previous educational environments.

[20] Carlbrook was a 15-month program which consisted of five workshops (Integritas,[21] Amicitia,[22] Animus,[23] Teneo,[24] and Veneratio[25]) which took place roughly every three months depending on the child's arrival at the school.

Elizabeth Gilpin, who is a graduate of Carlbrook School, makes the following claim in Stolen,[26] a memoir about her time there: At CEDU they weren't called workshops, they were "propheets."

Many of the workshop exercises were taken straight from the large-group awareness trainings that were a controversial part of the Human Potential Movement.

Techniques included hypnosis, guided meditation, and referring to people as "asshole"—an est specialty that fit in nicely with the CEDU model.The school closed in December 2015 after giving notice a few days before end of the fall semester.