<p>Oberlin offers outstanding academics, progressive social history, strong commitment to science and students whose main thing in common is their passion for learning. They can also put it down and have wildly funny conversations, then resume their serious pursuit in the next moment. </p>
<p>The characteristic to bring to Oberlin is a tremendous dose of tolerance and acceptance that each person comes with a point-of-view. It’s sport to cross-challenge those points-of-view, too. That’s why it’s known as a liberal campus, and people are visibly and vocally “out there” with their differences. </p>
<p>My Oberlin D, from a liberal household, had individual friends who were politically indifferent, quite conservative, and one Christian fundamentalist. On that last, she finally felt she’d heard his pitch often enough, so and finally asked him to desist as it was tiresome to listen to, as a rabbi’s daughter. Since she was majoring in Religion, his POV was interesting to widen her knowledge of what other people think, but just not endlessly. They found many other things as topics for communication and stayed friends. </p>
<p>From intparent, I now learn that her family encountered a few students who evidently have the point-of-view that showers are not essential! That sounds like an unpleasant encounter, and I too would have taken notice. I hope that POV doesn’t last beyond college, but knowing Oberlin I can make a few guesses: they are trying out to conserve water, they were up all night studying, or they spent the night with a friend and left right from some other dorm to attend classes. OR, they are just really sloppy and nobody is calling them on it, not even their roommate.</p>
<p>Sometimes that campus feels like a living room to its students. A few attend morning classes in pajamas until they get back to their rooms to change, which might be at 11 a.m. And so on. OTHER students there, most in fact, are plainly dressed and who would notice that? A few are groomed really nicely and wouldn’t be caught dead in Obie-public without their khakis and sweater vest. It’s a bell-curve. That these students co-exist is something to either treasure (and attend) or find it discomforting and go elsewhere. </p>
<p>When I attended Oberlin, 68-72, one classmate spent the one-month January Term with blindfolded eyes 24/7, and a cane, to experience blindness. At a deeper level, he also knew he needed to develop some empathy and compassion, but he knew that about himself. During another part of the year, he had read extensively on the topic of blindness, but used January term to explore it on a personal level, too. Nobody thought him strange to do that, either; we understood what he was doing and didn’t disturb his experiment. </p>
<p>I’m describing a degree of tolerance that allows for some mighty quirky sights at Oberlin on a tour, but trying to express what they might mean to the student. I can also understand that some applicants might enjoy that possibility of surprise, and others not so much. </p>
<p>I attended Oberlin and loved it. In that era, there wasn’t enough guidance but students wouldn’t have listened then, anyway. That has been changed a lot, and there is much better intergenerational communication at Oberlin as well as across the nation. </p>
<p>I’m not alone saying that the hardest thing about Oberlin is leaving it after four years. I solved that one by marrying another Oberlin alum, whom I met in the workworld 10 years after graduating. Then among our 3 kids, the middle one went to Oberlin. A few years later we were incredulous to discover the older son had fallen in love with an Obie he met in NYC, so now we have a daughter-in-law Oberlin alum, too. </p>
<p>I am disconcerted about some of the mix-ups described in posts above, where faculty or administrators weren’t thorough or helpful enough to visiting families. I can’t speak for those things, except to say I’m surprised and sorry. </p>
<p>But I can at least put the social “vibe” into some perspective that might help this year’s applicants decide if this highly ranked LAC with the famous liberal reputation might be for them.</p>