<p>they do have grades- they just don't automatically show them to you, unless you are not doing well.
However- you could be riding very close to the edge- and not know your grades- & one exam could push you into failing- so not for the weak stomached.</p>
<p>It has a very classical curriculum - a great books and ideas freshman course, Plato to Marx and beyond, taken by everyone, very U of Chicago esque, and a writing and thinking workshop, that everyone must take...and quite rigorous courses, but great flexibility. Very quirky student body. A reputation for artyness, but a new science complex and a great desire to attract science, math and comp sci people.. it is often very overlooked. A beautiful campus with fabulous professors. And probably one of the most amazing university presidents anywhere in the world. We looked at Vassar and Wesleyan and Bard all around the same time and they are all fabulous places. But given the incredible selectivity of applications, Wesleyan and Vassar didn't look nearly as quirky as their reps any more, even at Bard I was surprised to see many less hipsters than I thought I would. One of the things that Pres. Botstein said in a talk I heard there was this: many colleges are living on their reps from 60 years ago. Middlebury is a great school, but don't just assume it's languages. Kenyon is a great school, but the writers it is famous for were there 70 years ago; that doesn't mean it is not a fabulous place, but it's not "the writing school" as most people think. Similarly with Hopkins - it has this pre-med rep, not true, it's a very good school, but don't assume it's for people who do pre-med. Anyway... look at Bard, a very underrated place.</p>
<p>Reed is truly unlike any other place in the world. There are many schools that are similar to Reed (Oberlin, Hampshire, Bard, Bennington), however none can really compete with what Reed has to offer: the best academic program in the entire nation (in my and many others opinions). </p>
<p>Other than the fantastic intellectually-stimulating classes and teachers we have here, Reed is a school all about traditions. Many of which are not carried on by the administration, but instead by the student body. In this way, it is very true when people say Reed is a school all about fit. Reed is for students who want to be challenged, not only academically, but in all aspects of their being. It is for people who have (or are okay with) a whimsical, and eccentric side of them. I could go on, but what I am trying to say is that it is really, really difficult to find a school that is similar to Reed, and still provides an equally-good academic program. But the schools I listed above are often overlap schools of Reed, and I think have a certain quality about them that makes them just as unique as Reed.</p>