D fell in love with the place when she got their extremely creative and engaging brochure (graphic at http://vesa-s.com/Reed-College) and read up on them a little. Her high school is super-liberal and she fits right in. It’s only due to logistics and expense that we haven’t visited.
So, “What is a Reedie?” Who tends to enroll there, and how do they do after graduation? Merit aid to defray some of that $50K tuition?
Full disclosure - I’ve never set foot in the state of Oregon, although I lived out West for a decade.
I considered Reed very briefly as a possible for my younger D in high school. She thought it was too small, so it was quickly irrelevant. But during my research, I came away feeling it wasn’t worth it, at least in terms of our family and dynamic.
Now, having said that, it has a good rep, Oregon is gorgeous and it may be a perfect fit for your daughter. You definitely need to go visit.
It’s a great school for the accomplished unconventional student. I know two grads - they loved their time at Reed, grew a great deal intellectually, and went on to very successful careers. (One is a PhD candidate at a top-20 program in his field, the other is becoming nationally renown in her theater job.)
Don’t know about Reed’s FA, sorry; I don’t believe it’s especially generous, though.
Clearly, Reed isn’t for everyone, but it on the surface it seems your daughter might be a fit. Time for a campus visit? Oregon is a very pretty place!
The Reed grads I have met and discussed college with have been very impressive. If your D fits, she could do much worse. It seems to be very challenging and I get the sense that they look for self-starters.
Re Oregon, I am taking my sister’s opinion – paradise. Mind you, she was a 30+ NYC resident and enjoyed that also, but she is demonstrably happier in Oregon.
Oregon is a very liberal state (at least in the cities along the Willamette). Reed college is two steps to the left of even the liberal Oregonians. The students at Reed have a very high opinion of themselves, and in my opinion, don’t work and play well with outsiders who they don’t feel are their intellectual equals. That’s fine if you only want to hang out with others at Reed, but I didn’t feel they fit in well with the community. I lived and went to another school in Portland, and thought those I met from Reed just didn’t work in mixed groups well. I had a very limited sample size, of course, but that was my opinion. I’m a little more conservative, so the regular level of Oregonian liberalism was enough for me, I didn’t need the super strength Reed version.
I don’t think it is bad to want to be with others who think like you do, who want to explore liberal ideas, but just that you should be very sure that’s what you want.
My D loved the idea of Reed. She comes from a politically liberal family and grown-up in theatre, around musicians and the like. While she really enjoyed visiting the campus, it was a bit over-the-top for her. Lots of smokers. A pretty open drug culture (though certainly not all students go that route.) She liked the idea of a table where hungry kids could get left-overs from other students but it bothered her a bit seeing it in practice. They had activities but the every student she talked to told her she’d have little to no time for them. While she loved the idea of being at a school with so many like-minded thinkers, the lack of balance was clear and she didn’t know if that was best for her. She really loved the classes she sat in on. The kids were engaged. The professors animated and passionate. Portland is a great city and the school has easy access to it.
In the end, she was wait-listed which was a little surprising due to where her stats landed but D is very grateful as the LAC she attends now has been a much better fit environmentally and financially.
Some things to keep in mind. While they do offer to meet 100 percent need, they are NOT need blind. Just a couple years ago they admitted to needing at least half the study body to be full pay. I sometimes wonder if finances are why D was wait-listed and not accepted (as they don’t promise to meet needs of wait-listed kids)… not that it matters now. There is some merit aid but not a lot.
I do not think that Reed offers any merit aid whatsoever. You can consult the financial aid page on its site, but when my son applied it was pretty clear that all financial awards were need-based. They do not have a massive endowment, and they are not need-blind in admissions much as they might like to be. I don’t remember whether or not they claim to meet full demonstrated need. I suspect that they are pretty stingy when it comes to students who do not contribute to campus diversity, are not truly exceptional, or do not demonstrate interest by applying early (a tough call for applicants seeking financial assistance). My son went out of his way for an interview with a regional admissions rep in Philadelphia, and so he demonstrated interest. It was a modest reach or high match for him academically. His gender was probably to his advantage, but he was a white suburban kid who needed a little more money than Reed was inclined to give him and he wouldn’t have done anything for their aggregate stats. I think it might have been a little too intense and cerebral for him, but that would not necessarily have been a bad thing. Most Reedies I know are very intellectual.
It has a wonderful reputation for intellectual engagement and nonconformism. Currently, its most famous alumnus has to be non-grad Steve Jobs, who spoke glowingly of his time there.
My daughter, who ultimately went to the University of Chicago, was very interested in Reed, and she was not the only Chicago student attracted to Reed – there is a lot of overlap in their appeals. It’s well-known and popular for students at the fancy private schools in my area (Philadelphia), especially the most academically focused of them. It has some of the same intellectual vibe as Swarthmore or Chicago, except it’s in Portland, with all that implies.
One consideration for us, though, is that travel to Portland from the East Coast is pretty difficult – direct, non-stop flights are hard to come by and expensive.
Many well known private schools have about half of the undergrads as full pay. This is true even of those that are need-blind in admissions. However, many of them have admission processes and criteria that are biased in favor of high SES applicants, such as:
Use of ED to admit much of their incoming classes. Those needing financial aid are less likely to want to commit with ED and forego the ability to compare financial aid offers.
Use of CSS Profile in financial aid. Many needy students in low SES high schools with poor pre-college advising may not realize that there are additional forms and requirements until it is too late.
Use of non-custodial parent information for financial aid. This screens out many needy student from broken families.
Use of SAT subject tests in admissions. See CSS Profile.
Use of teacher and counselor recommendations. See CSS Profile. Also, teachers and counselors in low SES high schools may be less experienced with writing good recommendations.
Use of interview. Students from low SES backgrounds may be less attuned to upper and upper middle class norms in personal interaction, resulting in higher likelihood of making mistakes that are seen as "defects" by the interviewer.
So, while some other private schools are officially need-blind in admissions, their admission processes and criteria may have been pre-set to minimize the burden on their limited financial aid budgets.
LOL about Reed kids not playing well with others. The mother of one of the Reedies told me it’s a school for “quirky” kids… precisely ones who don’t go in for the usual stuff, socially and academically. Clearly, if you want sports and the Greek system, Reed is not a school for you! As others pointed out, Reed appeals to accomplished students. More than one Reedie turned town admissions from top-20 schools to go there. They may be “hippies” and nonconformists, but they’re also intellectual and like an academically challenging/rigorous atmosphere.
Reed offers NO merit aid, only FA. It was my D1’s first choice: very quirky, demanding academically (thesis required), beautiful quirky Portland. We would have been full pay. Fortunately she was waitlisted and attended a different college. I read from a good CC source that the GPA/scores only account for 25% of the admission consideration. It’s the essay and other things that get you in.
^^But don’t want to be so liberal as to let in the regular, average intelligence folks and try to stimulate them or even to learn what the average Joe thinks. They are elitists. I wouldn’t even classify them as hippies, because they don’t really want to live and let live, they want to be considered better and actually get jobs and make big money when they graduate. I went to grad school with others from Colorado College, Carlton, Willamette who all felt they were better than the Publics, but Reed was just different even from that group of LACers. Of course, it was us Publics who formed the study groups and organized the beers after class on Friday nights. We were the fun ones. We let them come too, but if they tried to act superior, we quickly shot them down.
Reed, and other small LACs, are a particular experience. Some love it, but I’d say those who do know it. The same person who chooses Reed is not going to pick UCLA or Notre Dame.
Reedies are a self-selecting pool. Visit Reed before applying, preferably during the school year. I know many high schoolers who were self-described hipsters and discovered Reed wasn’t a good fit.
Reed grads run the gamut. I knew parents of a Reedie, who’s son wanted to be a doctor. He had great support from his pre-med advisor. His thesis advisor wrote one of his recommendations. Applied to med school even though he didn’t know his gpa and was accepted. They say Reed prepared him very well for med school.
Reed does not give merit aid, and they are not need blind.
However, if you are admitted, they will meet full need, and we found them to be quite generous, bringing our costs down to FAFSA EFC.
I would recommend a visit, at least after admission before you decide however.
Turtle time, perhaps your friend was able to combine outside merit awards. https://www.reed.edu/financialaid/outside_scholarships.html
if you aren’t interested in graduate or professional school, Reed may be overkill.
But if you are, it may be one of the best prep schools in the country.
The OP question “What is a Reedie?” is actually answered in the pages of Reed Magazine.
If you go to the magazine’s web page ( http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/ ), type “what is a reedie” in the text entry box under “Browse Archives” and “search reed magazine”, you will get find links to a number of profiles of recent graduates from recent classes.
Of course these profiles are not a random sample of students off the great lawn. None the less, the quotes from these students about their experiences at Reed gives a fair account of the school vibe, and their accounts of their thesis work should be somewhat inspiring to the prospective student (at least one who would be a good match for Reed).
As for the school being too defensive, while the page about rankings does go on a bit towards overkill as a document, a better indication of the Reed vibe is that it seems that it took the school twenty years (after dropping out of the ratings game) to actually write up such a page. If anything, the school probably thought its strengths were self-evident, and didn’t really care all that much about self promotion, let alone being defensive about a rating system that doesn’t capture what the school is about.