A comment on competitiveness in college. People are using the term in various ways. #1) Grade grubbing as opposed to a learning focus. #2) One-up-man-ship, trying to conquer or dominate others; dog-eat-dog fighting for scarce goods (e.g., grades determined by a curve). #3) Demanding curriculum, with strong core requirements. Probably other notions are embedded in what people are writing. But they are sometimes equating the three that I’ve mentioned and that’s just not right.
One reason my son LIKED Chicago is that the curriculum was demanding (#3), but the students were not one-upping one another, fighting for scarce A’s (4-points). At least not in the courses he took. He did not plan on going to med school. He gave some consideration to law school and took the LSAT one time without prep and got a very high score, but he really wasn’t interested in a legal career. He did not try to get the highest possible grades. He graduated “with honors” at Chicago, but this didn’t require a 3.8 GPA – rather a 3.25 (if I recall correctly). His lack of focus on grades (as opposed to learning) was true since he was in high school and earlier. His test scores were extremely high but he didn’t prep for the tests at all. His GPA wasn’t at the top of his class because he had other priorities: 1) high school policy debate, 2) high school journalism (editor of opinion page), and 3) his hobbies. All of those were more important to him than grades. And tests, as I suggested, were something of an after-thought. He never prepped for them but performed extremely well on them.
Reed discourages grade grubbing, and in fact its grading system discourages students from this. When I attended, students didn’t know their course grades or their GPA’s. I never saw a transcript until AFTER I GRADUATED. When I received a graded paper, the professor wrote substantive comments on it, perhaps with a summary “Very good.” And students often met in “paper conferences” with the instructor to discuss the papers. But no letter or number grade appeared on the cover page. The students are very interested in ideas, and discussing and arguing and advocating, both in their courses and outside. They are not competitive with one another for scarce goods, but they may argue with others. We never spoke about grades because evaluations on papers and other assignments (except in subjects such as math and language and sciences) were based on overall performance, and not some kind of point-counting system.
There are many courses in which the focus is not on determining and rewarding or punishing “right” and “wrong” answers, but rather on addressing differing interpretations and expressing differing ideas. Reedies work hard, but it’s not a struggle of each against all for scarce A’s and B’s. In the end, for students who do want to go to graduate school, the MCAT’s and LSAT’s and GRE’s do matter a lot, perhaps more than grades. But someone such as the OP’s son who has stellar SAT’s is going to get stellar LSAT and GRE scores. He could take those exams today with no prep and probably get very high scores. My son took the LSAT once without any prep, just to learn about the exam. He got 169. If he had repeated it, he’d probably have scored in the low 170’s. But he wouldn’t have prepped for it! That was against his nature. And he decided against going to graduate or professional school.
After this long diatribe, let me agree that it’s important to find a college where the atmosphere is good. But one shouldn’t conflate the different notions of competitiveness. Every campus has a variety of students with different backgrounds, personalities, work styles, and life goals. Try to learn about the informal life of the college and the college community. A very smart student will want to have other smart kids to cooperate with, talk to, exchange ideas with, and so on. The End.
It’s very much a “live and let live” kind of place and groups/activities tend to be very open and welcoming.