<p>i'm thinking about applying for Reed, but one of my senior told me that the hippie culture there isn't something that everyone can get used to. i don't really know about that, so what difference can it really make (so do other hippie schools), or what hippie student do??? Thanks for providing information!!</p>
<p>They do drugs. You’ll probably be out of place if you don’t at least smoke weed.</p>
<p>They do art. You’ll probably feel out of place if you can’t appreciate the value of art.</p>
<p>They resist war/oppression. You’ll probably be out of place if you are keen to join the military or support Israel.</p>
<p>They judge money. You’ll probably be out of place driving a BMW.</p>
<p>They aren’t into pre-professionalism. You’ll probably feel out of place interviewing for Wall Street or major consulting firms. </p>
<p>They value difference. You’ll probably feel out of place if you think gays should get back in their closets. </p>
<p>They value consensus. You’ll probably feel out of place if you’re idea of a lark is imposing hierarchies on everything. </p>
<p>They question organized religion. You’ll probably be out of place going to church every Sunday. </p>
<p>Hippie culture is a hard thing to put a finger on, and not just because they get all slimy from all the drugs. For instance, even though hippies may not drive BMWs on campus, often they come from filthy rich families. And maybe they aren’t into making money now, but once they graduate and get out in the real world, give most of them five years. </p>
<p>The above traits are, however, some things I have noticed from my years in college, where there were some hippie enclaves. I almost joined one of these hippie fests my senior year, but I felt that I would be judged too much (from the hippies) if I did. And I was a great candidate, sans the drugs (and now the military) aspect.</p>
<p>Senior0991 is giving you a lot of stereotypes I wouldn’t buy into.</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what you mean by hippie culture. Hippies were a 60’s/70’s thing so it is so funny to hear people called hippies who are not old now.</p>
<p>Can you put your finger on what might be objectionable to you? </p>
<p>Do you mean politics? There are a lot of liberal arts colleges that have left leaning student bodies. Not all but a great deal of excellent ones. Many other schools too.</p>
<p>Do you mean Vegetarian/Vegan? That style of values and eating is a lot more prevalent among people of all backgrounds these days than ever before. And look at Steve Jobs who was actually like a fruitarian for awhile, he also went to Reed for awhile. Many colleges are now including vegetarian eateries and options, like UCSD, Wesleyan, Northwestern…</p>
<p>Mainly you are going to get students who are extremely academically focused as I understand that is what the work there demands. I think Reed is the only college that shows up on the NSF list of top 10 producers of eventual PhD’s in ALL categories.</p>
<p>Can you visit?</p>
<p>Adding: my daughter went to Brown and I have heard everything from pot smoking hippies, to tragic hipsters and I’m baffled after having extended visits many times and only meeting hard working bright people. So don’t buy into the stereotypes; no student body is one homogenous block.</p>
<p>They value difference.</p>
<p>lol…yet, Senior lists a bunch of “differences” that they’re not tolerant of.</p>
<p>For many students, the most important aspect of Reed’s so-called “hippie culture” will be drug use. For many years, Reed students have had a reputation for heavy drug use. You might get better information about this in the Reed forum. Ask if the reputation still is justified. Ask if there are substance-free dorms where you can avoid living with drug-using students, if you so choose.</p>
<p>You may prefer to choose another college. I suggest you try to summarize your goals, preferences, financial circumstances, and qualifications so that people here can advise you better.</p>
<p>BrownParent:
i am international, so this is really unfamiliar for me. Heavy drug is definitely unbearable, i mean it’s ok if just few do so, but i can’t bear once it becomes a culture. so do heavy metal music and passion of death (i hope you understand what i mean…)
thank you!!</p>
<p>mom2collegekids- that’s the point that Senior was trying to make. They value “differences” only if you are different in the same way that they are. Try expressing a conservative opinion to a liberal and you will get shouted down. They are not so much about free speech as they like to think they are - look what happened at Brown this year.</p>
<p>Sherrystream- some of these schools seem to have more of a pot culture and some have more of a drinking culture…in either type of school, there are always people who don’t drink or don’t do drugs, you just need to find a group of friends like you.</p>
<p>OP, the great majority of people here are very reluctant to bash any school or any subculture because of the risk of offending anyone. There are other sites with input from students that is more direct. This site blocks some references to other sites, so I will just say that one is “college_______” where the blank is filled in starting with a “p” and rhyming with “growler,” and another, which is probably more negative than fair, is “students” followed by “review.” Both of those site addresses should end with dot com.</p>
<p>I don’t know which country you are from, but that would probably be a significant factor in whether you can easily adjust to any particular college campus. For example, if you are from The Netherlands, then I suspect that you could adjust well to Reed, but if you are from The People’s Republic of China (my wife’s country of birth), then I would guess that you would not.</p>
<p>What? Some here think of Reed as being like San Francisco in the 60’s/70’s, everyone constantly stoned? And in those few straight moments, they sit around criticizing you? Anyone affiliated with Reed should say so; the rest may be looking from the outside.</p>
<p>Found this amusing: However, in 2010 the Daily Beast ranked the top 50 ‘Druggiest Colleges’ in the United States, assessing “which campuses have both environments that may be permissive of drug use as well as a student body that partakes in illegal drug use.” Reed College did not rank in the top 50, but comparable liberal arts institutions were listed, such as Williams (#9), Rollins (#20), and Gettysburg (#32).</p>
<p>The Daily Beast’s methodology borders on absurd. Here’s the reality, at almost every US residential college people are going to smoke weed. In the west, marijuana use is likely greater owing to both its near legality and history. That being said, at the vast majority of colleges, the only time someone will ever see marijuana being openly used is at parties where drug use (remember alcohol is a much harder drug than weed) is almost assumed. I can’t speak for Reed, but when my father asked a regional admission rep from the school about its Weed reputation, she explained that there was no way students could balance the workload and stay in a near constant haze.</p>
<p>I’ve started a response to the OP several times now and then thrown it away. EVERY school has a way about it: UAlabama, for example. You know when you go there you’re going to run into many students, professors, and admins who have strong feelings about sports. At Reed you will run into some hippie professors and some student anarchists. But you can find such people at Alabama, too. The question is whether you can find enough different subcultures at a school that you can feel like something other than a stranger in a strange land. That’s the question to ask of any school, esp those that have reputations for being a certain way and/or have tiny student populations. Go visit these campuses, eat in the cafeterias, hit the libraries, and interrogate the students you meet about the school’s reputation. Don’t be afraid; they WANT to help you decide. Talk to the admissions officers; one of their jobs is to protect the school from high dropout rates by avoiding bringing in students who won’t fit enough of what the school offers. And expressing reservations about attending won’t automatically garner a rejection. Ask your high school counselor to put you in touch with a Reed student, if possible. Decide for yourself. BTW, there will be people at Reed who love sports and still love Reed. Good luck, and let us know how you made out.</p>
<p>Carla2012, as a parent of a current Brown student, let me just clarify that the group of protesters you are referring to was relatively small, and over half were not even Brown students. My son is a member of the UCS, and from what I gather, the behavior of the protesters was an embarrassment to the vast majority of Brown students. That incident was in no way indicative of the sentiments of the student body as a whole.</p>
<p>Like BrownParent, I have spent a decent amount of time on the Brown campus this fall (my son is a first year, but I have spent a total of seven days on campus this fall for move-in and an additional long weekend visit), and I am perplexed as to where the “hippie culture” is hiding out on campus. Traditional dress is most prevalent, in my experience. I’m sure there are dreds and such on campus, but I haven’t seen them. Political sentiments definitely lean left, but my son has Southern conservative friends who are perfectly content on campus. The drug culture is much less prevalent at Brown than at my conservative southern alma mater. </p>
<p>OP, I don’t know much about Reed, but I’m not sure that the one-phrase descriptions we see on CC of various schools are always accurate or inclusive of the majority of students at a particular school. If you feel that Reed might be a good fit for you, I’d check out more than one person’s opinion. :)</p>
<p>Smoking a little weed is not what makes the hippie culture so darn annoying. And hippie culture is not easy to define as it takes various forms from the clowns who look at the 60s protesters and counter culture with nostalgia to the parasites who populated the Occupy Whatever camps.</p>
<p>Agreed, Xiggi. And, just because there is a group of politically-active students protesting something somewhere, it is not always “hippies/hipsters” who are doing so. In the case of the protest of Ray Kelly last month, most of the protesters who were actually Brown students were ethnic minorities, not the stereotypical “hipsters”. And, not all students who dress a particular way or have a certain world-view are “annoying”. It’s always best to take jkeil911’s excellent advice and decipher the accuracy of stereotypes for oneself by visiting or talking directly to current students. If that’s not possible, research beyond rumors from those who are relatively clueless/have their own agendas is always your best bet.</p>
<p>Oh, dear. What are we supposed to make of your opinion they range from clowns to parasites? OP should avoid schools superficially called “hippie?” Or granola, outdoorsy or into social or political action? 
Hope OP will do some research and make her own best decisions.</p>
<p>apply to Kenyon College instead, stronger academics, slightly more tolerant hipsters and less drugs. still a lot of spoiled kids rebelling against daddies money.</p>
<p>LF, perhaps I should have added more to my list that was an attempt to illustrate how the term is ill-defined. You added the granola crowd. The politically active. And we could have added a good number of other groups. Fwiw, I make no apologies for calling the geriatric crowd that still drives a VW minibus, dresses with flower shirts, is permanently stoned, and hangs around schools … Clowns. Same for the parasites who came out to join the OWS before returning to a life of petty crime, panhandling, and diverse illegality. The fact that STUDENTS joined in does not make the old and pseudo-hippies less noteworthy. </p>
<p>Again, the hippies are hard to define.</p>
<p>And, the fact that some, in some cities, may have been “parasites who came out to join the OWS before returning to a life of petty crime, panhandling, and diverse illegality” doesn’t represent any universals.</p>
<p>Whatever. </p>
<p>Op needs to know it is easy to characterize some schools in a phrase or two, much harder to hit the mark, consistently. Same goes for hippies and protesters.</p>
<p>Just avoid hippies in general…</p>
<p>OP, I agree with others that the term “hippie” is diffuse, but you probably need to know that the Reed motto is “Communism, Atheism, and Free Love.” And yes, there are a lot of drugs there. More than the average amount, though you will find drugs almost everywhere.</p>