<p>You have articulated several different concerns here, of which some are valid, some are not, and some are outright bizarre to me.</p>
<p>I don’t know what you mean by ‘romantic,’ but the college experiences offered by Reed, Kenyon, Carleton, Vassar, Hamilton, etc., albeit variable, are all equidistant from the American ideal. What I’m saying is that these are all small liberal arts colleges and on a fundamental level they feel the same; you feel like you know everyone in your class, the campus is beautiful and green, you live in a social bubble circumscribed by the boundaries of the college.</p>
<p>Secondly, the workload is not going to kill you, so please chill out. Reed is hard, but it’s not as hard as people make it out to be. If it were, no one would graduate. Don’t let people’s dramatic descriptions of what is essentially a very mundane routine–go to class, study, hang out with friends, eat, sleep–fool you into thinking Reed is a place where only a select few can survive.</p>
<p>Thirdly, people do love Reed. “Love Reed,” and all that. There is, however, a culture of competitive whining and self-absorbed identity politicking entrenched in the place that can get quite negative at times. Most international students manage to avoid it. As a rising senior and a fellow international, I can say I’m as happy with Reed now as I was during my freshman orientation, and my only regrets about my college years have to do with my failure to take full advantage of the opportunities presented to me.</p>
<p>Students are less involved in extracurricular activities than they would be at F&M, Union, Hamilton or Trinity. Most Reedies would contend that at many other schools the academic workload is lighter because education is seen as more than just studying, and students have more free time to engage in alternative forms of learning. At Reed, on the other hand, people are perfectly happy to read more or less all the time. This is a valid comment on Reed’s student culture, in my opinion. However, it’s not universally applicable. I know many people at Reed who manage to make time for a number of activities that have nothing to do with their studies, and to excel in them. I’d say a more pertinent distinction between Reed and those other schools is that Reedies are more likely to pursue personal hobbies and interests individually, rather than in groups. Which should not in any way preclude you from working on your writing/art/music.</p>
<p>Students do talk a lot about politics without doing much at all, especially when it comes to political activism that goes beyond Reed. After spending a year at an English university, however, I’d say that sort of inertia is endemic to American student culture as a whole. I highly doubt Kenyon would be more politically active than Reed, though given its student body’s relatively moderate political profile you’d probably encounter more political heterodoxy there.</p>
<p>There are plenty of opportunities to be artsy at Reed.</p>
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<p>My overall impression from your posts is that you did not have your heart set on Reed and are now looking for reasons to be unhappy with it, while idealizing the schools that rejected you or did not offer you good aid. No offence, but that’s the wrong attitude. Of course Reed has its flaws (though I’m not sure all the things you believe about it are true). However, so does every other school you’ve mentioned here. Some of the issues you’ve identified with Reed are actually more prominent at other schools you applied to.</p>
<p>I realize summer is a long season, especially the summer between high school and university, and you probably have little to do apart from obsessing over what lies ahead, but please try not to spend the next two months speculating about Reed’s ‘romanticism’ relative to other schools in the States or whatever. You’ll see when you get here. (‘Here’ figuratively speaking, since I’m not in Portland either.) Personally, I think you’ll like Reed more than you think, purely because I think a lot of your concerns are completely off-base, but even if you don’t and it really isn’t the place for you, you can’t know that at the moment. Give it a chance.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I’d never pick Union, Franklin & Marshall, Kenyon, Trinity or Carleton over Reed. They’re all fine schools, but I simply can’t picture myself there. I think, and most Reedies, no matter how disillusioned with the place, will back me up on this, that the quality of education Reed offers is among the best in the States. It’s made me into a better thinker and a better person, and I can’t imagine swapping that for the chance to be in a frat, Model UN or whatever other ‘traditional’ college activity you feel you’ve missed out on.</p>
<p>Again, that’s just me. It’s true that Reed is not for everyone. I just don’t know whether it’s as idiosyncratic as you fear it is.</p>