Reed College vs. Oberlin

Colleges and Universities A-Z Oberlin College
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<p>Arg! </p>

<p>This is the third time I've tried posting this. CC really needs to get its act together...</p>

<p>Allow me to admit that I (too) hate reading these comparative threads; they seem to imply that one college is objectively better than the other, when in fact, Reed and Oberlin are among the very best school in the United States. Also, Reed and Oberlin are as closely related as colleges get.</p>

<p>That said, I am interested in their differences. From what I gathered, Reed is small but urban, whereas Oberlin is larger but rural. Reed's curriculum includes a rigorous Humanities program and a culminating Senior Thesis, whereas Oberlin's includes Independent Study Projects during the January Term and teaching opportunities at its Experimental College. Lastly, Reed has a nuclear reactor, but Oberlin has a music conservatory.</p>

<p>Surely, there must be readers who are considering (or have considered) both schools; their similarities certainly outweigh their differences. But for those with a favorite, what ultimately determined your preference, and why?</p>

<p>Thank you.</p>

<p>P.S. I'm posting in an Oberlin forum because I regularly keep in contact with Reed students, as I am deferring my admission for a year. That said, my reasons for deferring are unrelated to Reed; it's truly an amazing school and would love to go next year.</p>

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<p>I'm from Portland, I took a couple classes at Reed my senior hear of High School, and I'm a sophomore at Oberlin. So I guess I'm in sort of a unique position to answer your question.</p>

<p>A friend of mine, a senior from my high school also taking classes at Reed asked me the same question the other day. So I'm going to copy some stuff from my email to her:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>Oberlin is over twice the size of Reed. It makes a big difference. Reed always seemed tiny to me, but Oberlin seems more comfortable. It's still small, though -- you can't help but run into people you may be trying to avoid, for example -- but there are always new people to meet. I think it's a great size, personally: not confining and still a community.</p></li>
<li><p>Oberlin has a music conservatory. I didn't really think about it before I got here, but it's great! There are concerts ALL THE TIME. 500 a year! That means there is, on average, more than once concert every day. I've met people who play bassoon, jazz bass, baroque recorder, and other amazing things. They bring a very different type of diversity to the school, and I really like it. I don't know if you're a musician, but if you are there are lots of ways to take classes and lessons in whatever you play. Last winter term, I took a class on making electronic music, and it was really interesting. This is one of the things that really sets Oberlin apart from any other school.</p></li>
<li><p>Location: urban/small town. Oberlin (the town) is reeeally small. I kind of like it. Some people don't. If you want to get out of town, Elyria (~10 miles) has all the big box stores to buy crap. Cleveland is also about an hour away, and people go there to do stuff from time to time. But the somewhat-insular nature of our campus means that people really invest into creating stuff to do here rather than "going out" for fun. There's plenty to do. But it isn't a ten-minute bus ride away from downtown Portland.</p></li>
<li><p>Reed is, I think, more academically intense. Oberlin doesn't have a Hum 110 or a thesis requirement. I think Oberlin classes generally have less reading too. But people often take more classes each semester here (it seems), and things like double majors (almost impossible at Reed) are pretty common. Also, you can do Honors your senior year and write a thesis, if that's what you want. I don't know. Reed was always a little bit scary, and Oberlin seems more reasonable.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>But it's truly a tough call. I would definitely considered Reed very seriously if it weren't in Portland -- I just really didn't want to stay in my home town. I really like it here at Oberlin. Winter Term and ExCos are AWESOME. Seriously. And OSCA, our co-op system, if you're into that. (Reed actually has a co-op, but there's only one and it's much smaller.)</p>

<p>That's only really scratching the surface. You posed a very difficult question. If you have any more specific questions, I'll do my best to answer.</p>

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<p>I've seen a number of posts declaring how similar Reed is to Oberlin. But in D's college hunt it seemed to me that Oberlin was more similar to a number of other colleges (eg wesleyan) than it is to Reed. There are notable differences in size, location, curriculum/intensity, as indicated above.</p>

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<p>But to most directly answer your question :
D applied to, and is attending Oberlin because of all the good stuff, eg per above post. </p>

<p>She did not apply to, or visit Reed because her GC gave her the impression that :i) it was really small; ii) they had absolutely kamakaze, Swarthmore-esque academics, resulting in a huge dropout rate; and iii) a large proportion of the student body had piercings all over same.</p>

<p>Could be all wrong, bit there's your answer, Didn't seem to us to be so very similar to Oberlin really.</p>

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<p>"She did not apply to, or visit Reed because her GC gave her the impression that :i) it was really small;"</p>

<p>1,436 students</p>

<p>"ii) they had absolutely kamakaze, Swarthmore-esque academics, resulting in a huge dropout rate;"</p>

<p>75% six-year graduation rate</p>

<p>"iii) a large proportion of the student body had piercings all over same."</p>

<p>Not a relevant statistic given in CDS, <a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/cds/index06.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.reed.edu/ir/cds/index06.html&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

<p>Sounds like the school needs a new GC!</p>

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<p>I <3 Counselors who have no idea what they are talking about talking anyways rather than admitting they don't know.</p>

<p>I thank god everyday that I have an INTELLIGENT counselor.</p>

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<p>vossron, I don't know what you mean, I think 1,436 students IS small, at least in comparison to what else she was looking at. And 75% grad rate IS not that great from what I recall.</p>

<p>GC was hardly an idiot, has been doing this for years and had actually visited Reed within the prior few years. Best private school in that area, with highly successful college admissions. Including some to Reed. He may not have been right in this case, I don't know, but there was no reason to think he was wrong, and still isn't so far as I can tell. Your stats are only reinforcing his stated opinions, not diminishing them.</p>

<p>FWIW, he didn't love everything about Oberlin either; but whatever he objected to about it didn't deter her, evidently. YMMV.</p>

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<p>I put up the numbers to remove ambiguity for readers.</p>

<p>A GC has no business dissuading a top student from a top school because it is her/his opinion that it is "really" small, nor because the school is rigorous, nor due to personal impressions of student traits; the GC can be doing a huge disservice to the student. A school may not be a good fit for a given student, but that's a different issue.</p>

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<p>1)A GC has every business expressing his/her informed opinion about what schools are like and how they might fit a particular prospective applicant. This is a valuable aspect of advising at a college prep type school. It is expected. At least it was expected at her school. and we were happy to get the input. It is a huge service to help a student avoid apparent mismatches that may not immediately reveal themselves. Especially ones of campus culture.</p>

<p>2) a student would be well advised not to take the sole word of a GC, or anyone else, without doing additional corroboration/investigation . In this case, I'm sure she read the books and took GCs comments only as reinforcement. She made other decisions contrary to GC, and to me. She is a very independent person and decides things for herself. Maybe that's why she chose Oberlin! </p>

<p>I guess the issue is, semantically, when I said "because of GC" in post #4, I misspoke. I might have more accurately said something like, "GC alerted her to.. ". Sorry.</p>

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<p>And, with my sensitivity training session now completed, I might better have said that it was smaller than she preferred, and seemed to have a higher level of academic intensity than she preferred. And left it at that.</p>

<p>Again, sorry.</p>

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<p>My son is applying to both, among others and I think would love either. His Dad went to Oberlin so we are more familiar there and we visited Reed in summer, so he'll go back for an overnight if he needs more info. Oberlin is the largest school on my son's list (and, yes, he thought it felt a lot like Wesleyan, but he preferred the Midwest location and presence of Con.</p>

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<p>Hey, i'm applying to oberlin this year. I know this is way off-topic, but i don't feel like starting a new thread:
I'm also not sure how to put this without sounding like a bigot: i know oberlin has a very large gay community, and i have absolutely no problem with gay people. but exactly how..."gay" is everyone? i mean, is everyone like carson kressley, or are many of them not so flamboyent seeming? i don't think it will really influence my decision either way, but i'd still like to get an idea.</p>

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<p>there is only one flamingly gay person in my dorm (he is the stereotype!), although i would imagine there are others who you can't really tell. There are plenty of straight people too.</p>

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<p>I've heard the same thing, but not a problem for my son. If he turns out to be gay (hey, who knows?) he'll have a great community. If not, he'll be much sought after by a different population.</p>

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<p>I don't know for sure, but I suspect straight students outnumber gay students by .... a lot. A school known for being welcoming of gay students doesn't mean the majority of students are gay by any stretch -- though i suspect oberlin has more gay students than, say a place like Oral Roberts U. Outwardly gay at least.</p>

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<p>My son goes to Reed and daughter attends Colby. Both are having great experiences. S applied to both Oberlin and Reed and was accepted at both. Chose Reed because of the location and the feeling he got from the school when he visited. PS: he has no tatoos or piercings, does not smoke.</p>

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<p>Wow. I haven’t posted a message here since May! My new job, I guess. Anyway, daughter is now a senior at Oberlin. She estimated about 10-15% of students are LGBT. That’s double to triple the estimated rate (that I’ve read) in the general population. If accurate, that means a whopping 85-90% of Oberlin students are straight. None of this should matter anyway.</p>