Although the former discussion comparing the two colleges has been closed, I have extensive experiences with both institutions and can speak to each of their strengths and weaknesses.
Academically, Reed is indisputably the better college, albeit because the curriculum is more grounded in the classics, and is more “distribution requirement” oriented than Hampshire is Hampshire’s academics vary widely from whatever school you are concentrating in, and are widely divergent, depending on which Divisional level you are at. That being said, Hampshire’s academics are supplemented and bolstered by its membership in the 5 colleges, and Amherst, Smith and Mt. Holyoke FAR surpass Reed in terms of prestige and academic rigor. Not to mention the resources of UMass Amherst, which also makes it a more dynamic academic community than Reed has on its single campus. Though, Portland does have Portland State University (PSU), University of Portland and University of Oregon/Portland. Lewis & Clark College, Pacific Northwest College of Art, and Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) but none of these institutions are connected to Reed like the five colleges are to each other.
Socially, the two schools are VERY similar, they tend to attract the same kinds of students. At Reed, it was quirky Californians, at Hampshire, it was quirky New Yorkers. Reed is definitely west coast, and Hampshire is definitely east coast. Drugs are an issue on both campuses, as they are at most “upper crusty” LAC’s where the students come from families that have money and privilege. This is nothing new, and honestly, both campuses have sober-living options on campus. In terms of college size and being residential living/learning communities, Reed and Hampshire are almost identical sister schools, and that’s where the differences start.
Reed’s social scene is a bit more “intellectual” in a sense that it’s more cosmopolitan because of its location in Portland, and Hampshire does not have that (Hampshire’s social scene is more “on-campus party” oriented). Although Northampton and Amherst are pretty cool funky college towns, and they do have a cultural vitality all their own, they aren’t on the same level as a major urban area (and they empty out at the end of the school year, and become dead over Summers and Winters). Portland provides year-round cultural opportunities and doesn’t ever shut down as small college towns do. UMass Amherst provides most of the cultural performing arts events in the area. Fortunately, Hampshire is within close distance of several major urban areas, but Springfield, MA or Hartford, CT aren’t nearly the kind of sophisticated, culturally vibrant city that Portland is. Portland is more on the level of Boston and Providence, and those cities are within a couple of hours drive of Hampshire’s campus but aren’t ten minutes away like downtown Portland is to Reed.
Reed wins hands down in terms of being in an urban location in my opinion. Portland also has other institutions of higher learning (as I stated earlier), though Reed is not linked to them the same way the five-colleges are linked to each other. Reed’s Science Department partners with local Portland public schools, but all other academic departments are separate from the larger urban environment of Portland. I attended Reed classes, spent time with Reed students socially, toured the campus extensively, attended theater, music and dance performances on campus, and basically, I could see myself attending school there, and Reed’s campus is beautiful.
Personally speaking, I am a Hampshire graduate, but, I did apply to Reed as a transfer student when I was living in Portland for a year on academic leave from Hampshire, because I really was attracted to the city and it’s arts scene, and it’s relatively affordable cost of living, and I could have stayed in my apartment (about a 10 minute drive from Reed’s campus) and lived off-campus in Portland itself. At Hampshire I HAD to live on-campus, because there was an insane process to go through the housing office to live off-campus. Though I did move off-campus right before graduation and ended up living in Northampton for a while and working and applying to Grad Schools.
In my highly individual, specific situation, it came down to a couple of different reasons I didn’t end up accepting Reed’s transfer admission offer and moved back east to finish my degree at Hampshire. #1: Money – simply put, Reed didn’t give me as significant of a financial aid package to transfer, versus Hampshire which gave me nearly a full year’s tuition (for my last two years) to come back and finish my degree. #2: My personal academic focus – Hampshire has a Film program, Reed doesn’t. The Theater programs (at that time in the mid-90’s) of both schools were about the same. Hampshire’s theater facilities and Reed’s were comparable back then as well. However, now, with Reed’s new Performance Arts Building, the facilities FAR outrank Hampshire’s. If I were choosing between the two schools again, Reed would win hands down. #3: Graduation timeline – if I had chosen Reed, I would have had to repeat my second year of college over again (Reed’s distribution requirements), thus taking me five years total in time to graduate, meaning three years, rather than two at Reed. I only had two more years left at Hampshire, so it made more sense to return.
The two schools are highly alike and attract the same kinds of students, yet couldn’t be more different. Hampshire is a more experimental wholly narrative evaluation based (though you can take five-college classes for grades) system and has a self-directed project and creative-based curriculum with few requirements “proseminar style” classes, and is more like graduate school Whereas, Reed is more “conference” class style based, has a more traditional distribution requirement curriculum, and you can choose narrative evaluation/grade options. At opposite ends of the country, urban v.s. rural campus, both the EXACT same size (1,400 students) and both offering students a wide range of academic opportunity. I don’t regret choosing Hampshire over Reed ultimately, because every student has to do what’s right for them. If I were going to do it all again, I would have applied to Reed as an undergraduate, rather than as a transfer student. If Reed were part of the five college system, I would say it has more in common with Amherst than with Hampshire, and that also gave me pause, having taken classes for a yeat at, and dealt with the elitist pretentious Amherst students (I met a couple of cool Amherst students also though, so that’s anywhere at ANY school). Amherst and Hampshire are about as different as two schools in a consortium in the same geographical location get. Reedies and Hampsters have more in common politically and both are unconventional student bodies (Hampshire maybe a bit more than Reed), yet Reed is definitely more traditional as Hampshire is experimental.