<p>Hi, I've been offered a spot on an Oberlin athletic team, but I don't know much about the school. I've been doing some research and it seems that some athletes are looked down upon by the general student body. Is this true?</p>
<p>Also, how are the computer science/cognitive science departments here? I'll probably be majoring and minoring in them, respectively. Do graduates get into top PhD/grad programs at a rate comparable to the MITs and Berkeleys of the CS world?</p>
<p>Thanks! Any general info about the school is also helpful.</p>
<p>my son is a varsity team member at Oberlin. He is also a member of Harkness the “Cuba” of the co-ops…you can’t get a bigger dichotomy. He is totally accepted within the coop and the athletic community. His experience has been positive and he actually enjoys his sport more now than in high school.
I would say in his case he was looking for a program that let him be a student first. The coaches from Wesleyan, Vassar, Kenyon and Oberlin offered admission recommendations and spots on their teams. He ED1’d to Oberlin and has been very happy.
A schaphoid fracture( undetected since his jr year in high school) took him off the playing field this past year. The Sports Med people organized his treatment at The Cleveland Clinic and his head coach gave him off field duties to keep him involved with the team. They handled the situation with great concern.
Can’t offer too much on the CS/CS merits. He has taken a comp sci class and it is totally out of his area of study but found it compelling and useful.</p>
<p>The computer science department at Oberlin is pretty small, so if you’re comparing it to top CS programs at tech-focused schools like MIT, you’re not going to be impressed. However, if you’re looking for a solid CS program within the context of a broader liberal arts education (one that will allow you the flexibility to do things like also minor in cognitive science, for instance), Oberlin is a good choice. You’ll have a smaller selection of classes to choose from, but all the important topics will be covered, and you’re not likely to have any difficulty getting into the classes you want. Quality of instruction is good, and you will be prepared for graduate study at top schools, especially if you approach your studies with that goal in mind and choose to do an Honors Project in your senior year. One thing I particularly liked about Oberlin’s CS department that you’re less likely to see at other schools is that there is a really nice sense of community amongst the CS majors. (A friend of mine went through an excellent CS program at a large university and found that his classmates hardly ever spoke to each other, which is not an environment I would appreciate.) If you have additional questions about the department, please feel free to reach out to CS faculty members with questions-- their contact info is on the Oberlin website.</p>
<p>Assuming that I take advantages of all of the resources available and work hard, would you say that an Oberlin degree could help get me into top grad schools?</p>
<p>Yes, absolutely. Oberlin is as highly regarded by grad schools as any college in the country. And you probably have heard the statistic that since 1920 more students from Oberlin have gone on for PhDs than from any other American college.</p>