Looking for a school where a sense of community and inclusion is easily detectable and important to the school. I know Bowdoin is pretty athletic, but whats the social scene like for the non-athletes? Is the social scene pretty determinant of what sports you play?
Wow, this Bowdoin forum seems dead these days. Sorry no one answered you. I wish I could but since I’m not a student or alum I don’t have the right perspective. Statistically only about 1/3 of students are athletes so they don’t represent the majority of students. I’ve also heard the social scene is more dictated by the social houses. And students my S has spoken with who are former HS friends have told him they didn’t find any social group dominant on campus. The vast majority drink but there is not a strong pressure to do so, allegedly. Hope that helps in lieu of a real answer.
Some students appear to recognize significant social divides at Bowdoin:
“Sports at Bowdoin Perpetuate a Culture of Division” – The Bowdoin Orient
I’m a rising sophomore at Bowdoin and I’m not a varsity athlete. That op-Ed is one side of the story, one I happen to disagree with. In my experience, varsity and non varsity isn’t a major divide–a good portion of my friends play a varsity sport. Sure, many teams eat dinner together after practice in season, and practice can take up a lot of their time, but that doesn’t stop athletes from making friends outside of their team/athletics at all. Beyond that, I’d say citivas’ description is pretty close to what has been my experience. There’s definitely a culture of inclusion here.
rising senior, varisty athlete. mostly agree with polahbeayuh, it seems like a very small divide and mostly in season to me. lots of teams are pretty close friends because they spend so much time together, but most are also friendswith lots of people not on their team/non-athletes.
rebuttal article: http://bowdoinorient.com/article/11177
Not so much at Bowdoin since they dropped the frats 20 years ago, but there are cliques at all colleges big and small. The sports divide is not that big, my daughter was on a team for 2 years, then dropped sports her last two years. She had great friends on teams and off teams. The social house scene is mostly for the sophomores. For 3rd and 4th year students it is more friend based and the tower is where the social action is for 4th years. There is a small off campus housing scene.