<p>We toured twice, and overnighted once at Reed and noticed the smoking both times. My S asked the students in the dorm about how many kids smoked, their estimate was that about 60% smoked, I found (find) that hard to believe. The official tour guide thought it "might be less." As I mentioned earlier, this was not a deal breaker, only a little unsettling. It was not the lack of anything at Reed, which is a great school, but what the alternative offered that sealed the deal for my S.</p>
<p>That is pretty high rate of smoking- and concerning- considering how hard it is for many people to quit.
What turned off one boy that I was really advocating Reed for ( he is a physics major) is when he and a few other boys were visiting in the dorm and they were having a "little" party, and tossed them some cans of beer. This really shocked them. My impression is that they weren't being forced to drink, but that the students were just trying to make them feel "included"
gee thanks.
My D hadn't had experiences like that - She doesn't go to all of the dances and events in the student union because there is a fairly high rate of drinking and smoking ( although I think it is banned now?)
but subfree do have their own events and of course there are other things to do in Portland off campus.
Nickel Arcade yeah!
But if you can visit- I am sure there is a definite difference between L&C and Reed-</p>
<p>carolyn - just now read your descriptions of the schools! thanks so much! my D has Willamette on her list as she has friends who attend and love the education they are receiving. i can see these kids are thriving and know they receive a lot of individual attention... also, they're not frat/sorot types... i'd say more on the artsy/quirky/intelligent side so know i'm wondering if they ever thought about applying to L&C.</p>
<p>we'll be visiting this summer and will report back.</p>
<p>also, i grew up in a little beach town in southern CA and a train went by our house every morn about 3:27 a.m. it rocked our house/felt like a cradle LOL! the only time it woke me up was when it didn't go by... i awoke wondering what was wrong! crazy, huh?</p>
<p>My daughter also felt an attitude of light-hearted ridicule of those who choose the sub-free dorms at L&C. I think she said that over lunch, she asked her hosts if everyone on campus was politically left-leaning. The response was "Yes, except those who live in sub-free." That comment was followed by snickering, she said. The whole conversation about pot and drugs concerned her a bit.</p>
<p>These are some great comments. I know we wiill visit, but i don't really expect to get this kind of info from the school people.</p>
<p>I should note that having said these things about our visit to L&C, my daughter is still interested in applying there. It's a beautiful campus, Portland is a great town, and the students seem happy. Oh, and one other concern that perhaps current L&C students or parents can address is the lack of sex-segregated bathrooms. We were told the only sex-segregated bathrooms were in the sub-free dorm. The rest of the bathrooms were coed. I wasn't too happy about this and neither were a few other parents on the tour with us.</p>
<p>At Reed they do have sex seperate bathrooms in the public areas, on campus.
In my daughters dorms they have always had at least two bathrooms on a floor and students can decide which way they want to go- ( the floors are co-ed)
She was in a subfree dorm for 3 years & bathrooms were divided by what end of hall you were on.
That is interesting that the sub free bathrooms at L&C are single sex.
It doesn't make any difference to me. I expect it would at a big school where you wouldn't know everyone in your dorm, but you know everyone at Reed. If someone is walking around with their bits hanging out, it doesn't matter to me if they are male or female, I don't want to be forced to look at it. They aren't in their home, they are in a semipublic living space and I found that the students were respectful of each other and of guests and retained a modicom of privacy.
Since several ( many?) of the students are gay- transexual, or some sort of other identification, bathrooms that are meant to be used by everyone just seems a lot simpler :)
* they do have a womens dorm or floor though*</p>
<p>At Reed there are both types of bathrooms. We were told each dorm area (floor?) votes on whether or not there would be bathroom sharing. We were led to understand that if there is a single no vote, then there is no sharing.</p>
<p>I think I heard the same about Reed and the bathrooms on our tour- that a vote is taken and a single no vote for coed would veto coed I wondered though how that single voter might feel if everyone else seemed OK with the coed bathrooms. When we visited Emory, Vanderbilt, and Wash U, they were surprised that we asked about the single-sex or coed bathrooms- they don't have any coed bathrooms, and everyone, without exception, that we spoke to were glad they didn't. Don't know what it is about Portland?! As for transexual students, I find it hard to imagine there would be very many students- but I did hear recently that Brown had a floor devoted to transsexual students?! But I suppose that's a whole other issue.</p>
<p>Oh, and when we were at Reed, I asked if there were actually any dorm floors that voted for single-sex, and our tour guide wasn't aware of any. All the dorm bathrooms she knew about were coed. It would be an issue, but maybe not a dealbreaker, for me (and my daughter too, I think).</p>
<p>well there probably aren't any students who have actually had the operation, but I tell ya, I have met those who are outwardly men, but identify as female, those who are outwardly female but identify as male, those who are outwardly male, but identify as a female but lesbian ( try and wrap yourself around that), after this the garden variety queers are pretty ho hum ;)
I don't know if the other dorms have a problem, I never had a problem but then I wasn't trying to use the bathroom at the same time as everyone else ( I don't think everyone has class at the same time however) . I think it is kinda like breastfeeding. Before I had even thought about having kids, I never thought about it. Then when I started thinking about having children, I considered it. By the time I actually had a child I was a militant breastfeeder, did it for years, and thought it was great.
Unisex bathrooms in a dorm, seemed a totatlly different environment than say the highly charged atmosphere of a nightclub. There I wouldn't want unisex bathrooms, but in the dorm, it was :::::shrug:::::::</p>
<p>Shojomo,
I found from talking to my son, a UCSC junior who is living in the sub free dorm in his college that its often the parents who insist their kids live in it. some are of the biblical nature. Our son is in there because its the last apartment they had with a kitchen he had to have for glutin free diet restrictions. Some of the kids are a little into the religous stuff, not his roommate though. They don't really enforce the rules that much. The dorm isn't sub free in reality, the kids are just less blatant about sub use.</p>
<p>On our tour we were told that all dorm bathrooms at L&C, with the exception of one or two (can't remember) floors designated as all-female, are co-ed. Shennie, perhaps you can address this, but when we were there we were also told by two students that next year L&C will also allow co-ed dorm rooms.</p>
<p>My daughter liked L&C and has kept it on her list. It actually is the only school within a two hour plane flight on her list at the moment (well, UCSC keeps popping on and off too) and it wouldn't surprise me if it made her final cut. But she is looking for a school with a quirky student body and isn't phased by things like co-ed bathrooms. I was impressed with the academics, the advising system, the beautiful campus and, of course, proximity to Portland. For her, L&C would probably be a good choice. But, her friend, who is on the conservative side, hasn't stopped using it as an example of what she doesn't want in a college since she visited with us. So, as in all schools, it is important to visit and to understand that no school is going to be right for every one.</p>
<p>My D asked me to add a few things about Reed to this post.</p>
<p>First, the Reed visit where the "hosts took off"--when was it? I got the impression it was late April. In late April, everyone is getting ready for finals, and the campus is frantically studying--which would explain where the hosts went. Was there an explanation given? My D acted as a host once and didn't do it again because the visit was scheduled the night before a midterm and she felt bad that she couldn't hang around and chat.</p>
<p>As for smoking at Reed, it's nowhere near 60% of the student body. I wouldn't be surprised if 60% had had a cigarette once--trying clove cigarettes seems to be a freshman thing--but my visits have shown the usual cluster-smoking outside buildings (about the same frequency as the Microsoft campus, BTW) and I haven't noticed a cigarette smell in the dorms. (As an ex-smoker, I have that hyper-sensitivity that drives current smokers crazy.)</p>
<p>As for drugs at Reed, there are indeed people who smoke marijuana. There are also people who don't. (I had a long talk about this with D's boyfriend, who is both a regular church-goer and a non-user of anything.) With Reed's heavy focus on its own quirkiness and the sense that everyone there has something that makes them unique, there doesn't seem to be a lot of peer pressure; "no" seems to be an acceptable answer to just about anything.</p>
<p>Reed is a place for people who want a small highly academic college where it is possible to forge strong bonds within a small circle. My D's roommate next year transferred from UCSC because Reed was small enough that he could be an economics major AND act in school plays. (At UCSC, only the theater majors got parts.)</p>
<p>A small comment on L&C: they give merit scholarships. My D applied there early action (when they assured her she'd get in, she used it as her safety school), and was offered an $8K/year merit scholarship. My D decided to go to Reed instead because she didn't like the "preppy" tone on the L&C campus when she visited classes.</p>
<p>Just wanted to add a little tidbit here: Yesterday a different friend of my daughter's was talking about her recent visit to L&C. She didn't like it. Reason? Too preppy. Which is exactly the opposite of the impression my daughter and I had. We finally figured out why she felt that way: She'd just visited on a summer weekend and her tour guide was wearing a suit. Therefore: all kids at L&C are preppy and not like her. </p>
<p>So, three kids from the same group of friends have visited the same school. My daughter, artsy and quirky, thought L&C was artsy & quirky and interesting. My daughter's best friend, who visited with us, is very conservative. She thought L&C was very "out there" and scary. My daughter's other friend, who is very liberal and on the quirky side like my daughter, thought L&C was "preppy."</p>
<p>Just goes to show you how the same school can be viewed differently by different people, visiting at different times. Very interesting, no?</p>
<p>I have to comment on L & C and preppiness. My son attends and is one of the most unpreppy kids there is. He doesn't see preppiness there at all. He feels very comfortable as a non-athlete, non-prep, non heavy duty partier. He did not like Reed at all on our visit. He saw too many smokers and found the students to be too intense, but his cousin attends Reed and loves it. I think this is why visits are so important.</p>
<p>Shennie, doesn't this experience illustrate the opposite: that short visits are too likely to be influenced by the student's impression of the campus tour guide? My son's overnight visit to L&C on a Thursday night showed him two different worlds - the impression he got by day with the tour was very different than the impression he got with a night in the dorms. </p>
<p>I have never visited L&C, but I have a hard time believing that a LAC in the Pacific Northwest that invariably ends up on the Princeton Review "tree hugger" and "reefer madness" lists is going to really qualify as "preppy" -- though as Carolyn points out, it is all in the eyes of the beholder.</p>
<p>I think it is probably preppy as compared to Reed not preppy as compared to UW or Stanford. ( perhaps as compared to U of O)
Of ocurse Reed students who take classes at L & C "dress" up to keep their reputation intact. I don't know of L & C students doing the reverse.</p>
<p>Yes, I think Emerald nails it right: it is preppy compared to Reed. </p>
<p>I think I already mentioned this, but when we were at L&C, people there told us the people at Reed were "strange and alternative" but when we got to Willamette, the kids there told us that L&C students were "strange and alternative." </p>
<p>So, it is all in the eyes of the beholder and when you visit too, I think. My daughter's initial impression of L&C was definitely NOT preppy - believe me, she runs when she sees the slightest hint of that. Which is why both she and I had a good laugh that her friend thought L&C was "preppy" because of the tour guide. No one would have called our tour guide preppy.</p>
<p>My S had his hosts take off and it had nothing to do with finals. They went into town, and told S they would return sometime after midnight. The smoke detectors in the dorm, not just in the room, were covered with plastic so the smoking would not set them off. There was open pot smoking in the common areas of the dorm. Having said all this, as mentioned before, it was not a deal breaker. The tour guide at Reed was quite good. Reed was in contention right up to the last minute; it was just that S thought another school provided him with broader opportunities. (He did not like L&C for some reason.)</p>