<p>I haven’t visited Reed either, so it’s reputation may be more of a caricature than fact. But then again, my son’s impressions of the school when he did an overnight did seem to line up with the other sources of information he had – but that was a while back, in 2001, when the school was still accepting about 75% of its applicants – so it is possible that with tighter admissions the overall environment has changed somewhat.</p>
<p>My d. was admitted to UChicago and I have the sense that she ended up with very similar academic experience at Barnard, more so than either she or I anticipated. That is, Chicago also has the reputation of being the “death of fun” school because students are studying so hard. Barnard students certainly have plenty of fun, but Barnard/Columbia also turned out to be a place where students spend a LOT of time studying and there’s not much of an on-campus partyscene – partly because dorm policies at both campuses tend to discourage the sort of dorm-based parties that are common on many other campuses. Columbia does have fraternities – and the frat parties that go along with that – but my d. wasn’t into that sort of thing, so it really wasn’t part of her experience. </p>
<p>I think that in general, Barnard/Columbia students tend to be highly focused & driven, and I think they are able to compartmentalize well to budget their time --so they do take advantage of all that the city has to offer – but overall it is academically intense environment.</p>