<p>I'm an IB/IHS junior at a really good high school in Oregon. My GPA (unweighted) is about 3.9. I haven't taken the SAT's yet, although my PSAT scores were not as good as I had hoped they had been. Granted, I did go to a concert the previous night and had a cold...
I've been taking practice ACT tests and have been getting 30-33's consistently. </p>
<p>I don't have that many extracurriculars, but I am doing a cool student internship at a local nonprofit psych research center. I also plan on writing my senior paper on a related topic and just got an offer from the co-founder of this research center to be my tech advisor for the project (yay).</p>
<p>What really draws me to Reed is its focus on academics and not grades, its 'quirkiness' (I'm the kind of person who would get into the silly stuff like reenacting the Titanic), its location... I really just want to learn as much as I can at college. I'm really psyched for the challenge and look forward to having interesting discussions on material instead of memorizing stuff. I'm a little scared for the workload, but since I'm doing IB with no problem I think I can manage.
Like I said, I want to learn anything and everything. Literally. I'm a little socially awkward (I'm kind of...weird? :) )
Thanks so much!</p>
<p>You sound like a good candidate. Take both the ACT and the SAT and submit the one you do better on. Visit the campus and let them know you are interested. Good luck.</p>
<p>Just relax and be yourself. We read applications really holistically, and while good numbers are a plus, a lot rests on what you say about why you want to go to Reed, your personality, rec letters, and an interview if you can have one. Let yourself shine through, and our amazing admission counselors will pick up on the Reedie inside you.</p>
<p>My daughter is looking for a strong academic liberal arts school with a great fine art dept. Does reed have both?</p>
<p>I am not a Reed student, but -</p>
<p>It’s my understanding that Reed holds academics as its primary focus far above anything else. The view is that fine/performing arts and athletics are good to complete the education of a liberally educated citizen of the world/however you want to phrase it, but that academics will always be front and center; that’s what college is for, right?</p>
<p>When I visited Reed I was impressed with their art gallery and a mural near the dining hall that was an alumna’s thesis, and I saw posters advertising the visit of Itzak Perlman. But I’m also a fairly ambitious musician, and I know that Reed’s music department can’t compete with somewhere like, say, Swarthmore (they do a lot of things with Curtis) or Columbia (across the street from the Manhattan School of Music) or Tufts (you can take classes at the New England Conservatory) or Oberlin (possibly the best performer of my instrument teaches in their conservatory) or…</p>
<p>So to answer your question, maybe? If by great you mean very good, then probably. If by great you mean one of the best in America, probably not.</p>
<p>marlenebrenda, I’d agree with unitofobscurity. Even though there are a significant amount of Art, Dance, Theatre and Music majors at Reed, the emphasis on the Arts is clearly lacking when compared to other Liberal Arts Colleges (for example, we don’t even have a Film Department). What we have is a clear emphasis on theory and sometimes the truly, completely artsy lot can be stifled by the amount of emphasis Reed places on studying the Classics and the like. If you’re looking for Liberal Arts Colleges that integrate the arts into their curricula and have adequate facilities to support the same, look at Bard, Barnard, Bennington, Oberlin, Sarah Lawrence, Smith, Vassar, Wesleyan and Williams.</p>