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<p>Yes, it can be risky to type-cast an entire college (“Birkenstock-Wearing, Tree-Hugging, Clove-Smoking Vegetarians”). Best to consider information from a variety of sources, including comments by current students and parents on the individual college threads.</p>
<p>Hey! Some facts! Well, maybe UChicago does well among other research universities, but seeing as it is the only university on my list those statistics aren’t really relevant. Although, ole Jamie B’s numbers are rendered a little more irrelevant because they are a little behind the times… according to their website, Chicago’s endowment is actually $6.58 billion. [url=<a href=“http://www.uchicago.edu/annualreport/financials/endowment.shtml]The”>http://www.uchicago.edu/annualreport/financials/endowment.shtml]The</a> Endowment | The University of Chicago<a href=“probably%20all%20the%20filthy%20rich%20jock%20banker%20econ%20majors%20giving%20back%20to%20their%20gross%20awful%20school%20that%20I%20hate%20and%20for%20some%20reason%20am%20applying%20to…%20haha.”>/url</a> But in the case of comparing it to Oberlin and Reed, it’s really apples and oranges. Of course Chicago has more resources. It’s a university in Chicago (hence the name). Good thing I don’t really lose much sleep over the endowments of the schools I am applying to! Or should I? Any suggestions on taking endowments into account? I guess with Oberlin it’s obvious (middle of nowhere), but when it comes to my interests, I’m not sure that endowment matters. I don’t think there are many internships for lit. majors (for example) anyway.
Should I just go to either Chicago or Smith if endowments are that important, and forget about the other 2???
Oh and some responses from people who are actually trying to help me decide on a school would also be nice :)</p>
<p>To address your concerns re. what a homogeneous student body means for you: Again, if you’re considering a school famous for attracting a certain type of person, and Reed is such a school, you should visit and see for yourself if you could bear to be in that environment for 3-4 years.</p>
<p>I won’t try to fudge the truth and make Reed out to be more politically diverse than it is–I’ve met some politically apathetic people here, and some libertarians/anarchists/whatever, but the overwhelming majority of students are very liberal, and I’ve yet to meet our sole Republican (who may have graduated already)–but political homogeneity does not have to translate to intellectual homogeneity. The ideological makeup of a student population should worry you less than its openness to constructive debate. And in my experience, at least, people here are always willing to put their ideas and convictions on the line. This readiness to put yourself out there and weigh your own convictions against other people’s may not necessarily be present at other schools, even if they’re more politically diverse.</p>
<p>That being said, the same exchange of ideas famously happens at UChicago (and probably Oberlin, which I’m not as familiar with).</p>
<p>Endowments don’t directly affect you but the size of a school’s endowment and amount of research funding has a large effect on things like financial aid, student-faculty ratios, and pretty much anything else a university does that requires money, which will affect you. Reed’s endowment is around $250,000 per student and Oberlin’s endowment is around $225,000 per student. One thing to consider that if you need financial aid, Chicago is likely to provide more than either Reed or Oberlin because of it’s superior financial resources.</p>
<p>“but political homogeneity does not have to translate to intellectual homogeneity. The ideological makeup of a student population should worry you less than its openness to constructive debate.”</p>
<p>I actually think that political homogeneity DOES imply intellectual homogeneity to a large extent. Political homogeneity might allow for openness to constructive debate, but disallows for ideas to be considered outside of a particular range of thought. A largely liberal student population may be open to arguing about the use of nuclear power, but what about say, the war in Iraq or the 2008 bank bailouts? There are plenty of good arguments and interesting perspectives on both of those issues, but I doubt you’d see a whole lot of them at Reed.</p>
<p>Generally, it’s my personal opinion that having a student population too devoted to academia is dangerous, because (perhaps contrary to what you’d think) academics as a group tend to be quite narrow-minded on a number of important issues. Try debating nuclear energy with those in the humanities without a scientific perspective, and you’ll see what I mean. I think that it’s important to have not only liberal arts majors, but scientists and pre-professionals involved in debates to get the best perspective.</p>
<p>That all being said, it seems that the OP would work better at Reed or Oberlin than at Chicago. Chicago is no longer the liberal arts school that it once was. Although it emphasizes rigorous thinking to the same extent as Reed and Oberlin, it also produces a fair number of businessmen, lawyers, and doctors, which is an environment that the OP doesn’t seem to want. If the OP wants a more narrow academic focus, Reed and Oberlin are likely more appropriate schools.</p>
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<p>From the latest Chicago date here <a href=“Home | CareerAdv”>Home | CareerAdv, we see that something like 7% of Chicago’s class goes into J.D. or M.D. programs after graduation. Reed’s data [REED</a> COLLEGE SENIOR SURVEY RESULTS](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/seniorsurvey.html]REED”>Senior Survey Results - Institutional Research - Reed College) is not nearly as good but according to the above links the percentage of Reed students who immediately go to graduate school is less than half that of Chicago. It’s probably true that Chicago students are more likely to go into finance or consulting but it’s not entirely clear that many more go into business, medicine, or law. This Oberlin survey <a href=“http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/assessment/2008seniorsurvey.pdf[/url]”>http://oberlin.edu/instres/irhome/assessment/2008seniorsurvey.pdf</a> is a bit old (2008) but you can also find useful data from it. In conclusion, I don’t think the claim that Chicago students are significantly more likely to go to law or medical school but Chicago students are considerably more likely to go into finance or consulting and less likely to go into Education.</p>
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<p>Endowment size may be an important metric; however, the amount of financial aid an individual receives (or the amount of money flowing to student activities like concerts) is not necessarily neatly proportional to the endowment size per student. Many factors are involved (including student body demographics, institutional priorities, competition with other schools, specific financial aid policies, the amount of the individual’s need, etc.) Chicago awards a large volume of aid overall but I’ve seen a number of complaints on CC about how their awards play out in individual cases. </p>
<p>Chicago unfortunately does not publish a Common Data Set so it is hard to get authoritative, detailed data to compare it with Oberlin and Reed for number of students receiving aid, average package size, and average percent of need met. The numbers on the Kiplinger “best value” college site suggest that aid recipients at Chicago and Reed have similar average net costs (COA - average n.b. aid), and that these are a few thousand dollars lower than at Oberlin. However, that might be because Oberlin students on average needed less aid that year. </p>
<p>There really is no predicting, you just have to wait and compare your offers.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Values in Private Colleges, 2011-12](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/tools/privatecolleges/]Best”>Kiplinger | Personal Finance News, Investing Advice, Business Forecasts)</p>
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I agree with tk; this is NOT something to consider at application time; it’s irrelevant until you receive a financial aid offer with acceptance.</p>
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<p>vonlost, so are you telling us that the likely financial aid to be rewarded upon acceptance should not be considered when deciding what colleges to apply to?</p>
<p>I don’t agree with this</p>
<p>as an example, three letters:</p>
<p>NYU</p>
<p>Yes, IMHO. It’s easy to be wrong about predicting likely FA with the limited info available. However, if you use a school’s calculator, and the aid comes up short, and the FA office confirms the calculation, then you might decide to give up on one of your favorite schools. If a school gives merit money then you have even less idea how much total aid you would get. E.g., NYU does not meet full need, but they give some merit money, so predicting total aid is difficult.</p>
<p>I would definitely not eliminate any of the OP’s schools because of anticipated low aid.</p>
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<p>**vonlost, but wait a minute, did you not post here that the probable financial aid that an applicant might obtain if accepted should not be considered when applying to colleges?</p>
<p>I am now a little mixed up here?**</p>
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<p>vonlost, you seem to know a lot about Reed</p>
<p>can you tell us a little about how you compare it to Oberlin and Chicago in the context of what matters to the OP?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>There are often exceptions to general rules. :)</p>
<p>I consider all three schools to be excellent (I’ve known kids at all three); it comes down to personal preference. It could be a tough choice for someone admitted to all three, especially if academics are the prime consideration.</p>
<p>^^^^yes, I agree, Reed and Oberlin are truly excellent schools</p>
<p>but at the level of U Chicago</p>
<p>absolutely not!</p>
<p>Clearly for the specific case of the OP what matters is the amount of he/she actually receives from the schools and not their general tendency to award aid. But the OP asked about whether he/she should care about the size of a school’s endowment and financial aid although far from solely determined by the school’s endowment is heavily dependent on it. Although Chicago has somewhat a reputation for bad aid, I think that’s mainly in comparison with schools that are similarly ranked with it not with schools like Reed or Oberlin [I think Reed isn’t even need-blind]. The other reason I mentioned the general tendency to award aid is that I assume this thread may be helpful to other students now or in the future.</p>
<p>In Reed’s case the endowment has no effect on the amount of aid a student receives (Reed meets the full need of all admitted), but it indirectly influences how many students receive aid. Reed is indeed need-aware, but that should also be irrelevant to domestic applicants; it affects the chances of admission (but only of those on the cusp), not the desirability of the school.</p>
<p>The size of the endowment also effects what Reed considers your need to be and the composition of the financial aid package [a package composed mainly of grants is much better than one mainly of loans]. The point about Reed being need-aware is not so much that it makes Reed less desirable [although it does leader to an academically weaker and less economically diverse student body] but it reveals the relative weakness of Reed’s financial aid.</p>
<p>“The size of the endowment also effects what Reed considers your need to be”</p>
<p>I haven’t seen Reed’s aid formula (Profile and Institutional), but I’d be surprised if the current endowment balance has any influence. </p>
<p>A few top scholars don’t get loans, but I believe everyone else (domestic) gets federal loans (and work-study), and no one gets more than federal loans (see the CDS). If your need matches federal loan limits, you may indeed get only loans!</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen Reed’s aid formula (Profile and Institutional), but I’d be surprised if the current endowment balance has any influence.”</p>
<p>I don’t mean that the Reed financial aid office literally looks at the current endowment to determine student’s need but the size of the endowment contributes to the financial aid budget which will have effects on what they determine your need to be. While the package they give may be mostly grants if think your EFC is a lot higher than what you think it is, the actual composition isn’t as important although grants are still much better than loans.</p>
<p>“the size of the endowment contributes to the financial aid budget which will have effects on what they determine your need to be”</p>
<p>Well, this is just not my experience after communicating with the Reed FA office over many years. As explained to me, the FA budget influences how many get full aid, not the amount of aid given. If someday the endowment grows enough for Reed to become need-blind, then perhaps the CDS history will show if the amount of aid grows for that reason; otherwise I think it’s speculative. Perhaps loans would be eliminated, but that still would not affect the calculation of need.</p>