<p>A word on Reed – Fit is extremely important for a student to be successful at Reed. Some great minds have passed through those doors, but please understand this is not a place for all students. If your child is interested be sure and have them do an overnight visit. There is little to no hand holding at Reed and independence and maturity are VERY important. </p>
<p>Reed attracts some of the brightest minds in the country. It also has a rep for a drug problem, some of that may be attributed to the intellectual level of its students. Profoundly gifted kids and drug/alcohol use too often go hand in hand. This is a sink or swim kind of place.</p>
<p>“There is little to no hand holding at Reed and independence and maturity are VERY important.”</p>
<p>My experience as a Reed parent is that the hand-holding level at Reed is high as at any LAC; you get a LOT of attention from profs. A struggling student will be contacted by the prof. Free tutors are available when extra help is needed, e.g. at the DoJo. Students meet regularly with their advisor. The catch is that the Reed workload can be extreme, and profs expect students to do the work; independence and maturity are indeed very important to this end.</p>
<p>Vonlost – hand holding and support from professors are different animals. Naturally the profs and the deans want the students to succeed so they will put effort into helping students achieve. The dean of students will tell you flat out that if you’re not there to work, don’t bother applying.</p>
<p>ETA: The cool thing about Reed is that maturity is not based on age. They’ve admitted students as young as 15.</p>
<p>If you are visiting L&C, check the school’s website for lots of great hotel deals offered through the school, including $129/night at the Monaco.</p>
<p>My D didn’t visit Reed, so I can’t comment on the vibe on the campus and the discussion of “hand holding”, but she has seen evidence at L&C of the hazing at Reed, including when a U-Haul truck dropped off a load of naked Reed students on the L&C campus.</p>
<p>I would say that hand holding and expectation of doing the work are different issues. If the student won’t do the work, there will be no hand holding. I guess I equate helping students achieve with hand holding. I didn’t get either at the big U way back when. ;)</p>
<p>Von: How does your child like Reed and Portland? I’m hoping at least one of my kids goes to school in California so I can come visit and get some sun!</p>
<p>Hazing? Wow, I can’t believe you even went there. What you’re talking about is a dumb freshman tradition that needs zero coercion or intimidation to be upheld. Believe me, no one gets naked at Reed against their will.</p>
<p>Once every year, Reed students (mostly freshmen, because for the rest of the students the novelty has worn off) get naked, cover themselves in glitter, march through the Reed campus in the nude, and then go to Lewis & Clark to terrorize the locals. The people who are involved in this always do it of their own free will, and seem to have great fun doing it. There is nothing seedy or illicit about the way the event is organized, and the administration and campus security force (Community Safety) are always fully aware of it–and sometimes join the rest of the student body in gawking at the participants. Sorry.</p>
<p>Agentninetynine, what you’re saying about Reed’s sink-or-swim environment may or may not have been true 20 years ago, but is completely untrue today. There is as much institutional support for struggling students at Reed as there is at any of the other schools my friends go to (Johns Hopkins, Williams, Tufts, UPenn, etc.), judging by the conversations I’ve had with them. In fact, I’d say Reed is decidedly better than most of those schools at supporting sexual assault survivors and accommodating for mental health issues.</p>
<p>Sorry to interrupt this conversation, but a lot of what people are saying about Reed seems to be either third-hand knowledge, opinion informed by sensationalist articles in second-rate local publications, or based on 50-year-old stereotypes. So a lot of it is wrong.</p>
<p>Reed only allows seniors to participate in the overnight program. D will at least have an idea if Reed or LC will be on her list. If yes, D will definitely stay overnight. We are very open minded and try not to make snap decisions without weighting the pros and cons. On the way home, we may stop by Willamette. </p>
<p>There aren’t too many top LACs on the West coast. She would have a much better chance of getting into Caltech or Harvey Mudd than into Pomona or Reed based on her stat. She loves and does extremely well in Math and Science but has no desire to major in STEM fields, argh… To further narrowing her choices, her almost 90 yo grandparents have repeating ask her to stay closer to home for at least a bi-monthly visit. She sees them every Saturdays without fail. D is way more mature and nicer than H & I :)</p>
<p>Ghostt-- as discussed above hand holding is NOT the same as providing support for sexual assault victims, offering mental health counseling or providing classroom support.</p>
<p>My comments are based on news reports, discussion with a family member employed by Reed for many years and a very recent conversation with a Reed Dean at a non-college event.</p>
<p>He said that only independent, mature students would be considered. Further, that if a student wasn’t ready to live on their own, show up to class, be willing to work, they weren’t Reed material. </p>
<p>He went on to give the example of a 15 yo home school girl who convinced the deans that she was mature and independent. And that he’d known older students who couldn’t make it.</p>
<p>Von – that may be. And he may have been far more open about the reality of campus life at Reed and possibly his attitudes toward it all as I wasn’t a prospective parent.</p>