<p>This sounds like a decision you should make after considering your acceptances in March/April.</p>
<p>“the FA not being better than my other choices” This isn’t true.</p>
<p>Just by the statistics of averages from CDS H2, Reed is better for FA than many of your choices like Carleton, Oberlin, Occidental, Macalester and Whitman. However, on average Pomona, Middlebury, and Vassar have better FA than Reed. There’s also a possibility at a few places like Grinnell you’ll get merit aid on top of need based FA. However, all FA awards are on a case by case basis.</p>
<p>BTW, most people who start out as double majors anywhere don’t finish. They just have a second subject as a side specialization. Further, two complete majors is usually at odds with a liberal education.</p>
<p>At my alma mater about 10% of students double major and the majority graduate on time. It’s not easy but it can certainly be done. At some schools 1/4-1/2 of students double major. Part of the increase in double majors has to do with the large numbers of students entering with multiple AP credits.</p>
<p>Reed makes it more difficult to double major than most schools because it requires two full theses, whereas most schools require a single thesis or none at all.</p>
<p>Still, this whole 3 hours of homework a night deal is pretty unappealing.</p>
<p>I think you can expect a minimum of 3 hours per night at any of these schools.</p>
<p>Definitely haha…Pomona is a good 4-6 hours for most people.</p>
<p>Then why is reed perceived as being so hardcore?</p>
<p>At first I thought you had a typo, and meant getting three hours of SLEEP per night at Reed! That’s hardcore! ;)</p>
<p>Goodness, no. I was under the impression that three hours a night of homework was excessive… now that I think about it, that’s only a bit more than what I have now (minus distractions).</p>
<p>I spend way more than 3 hours per day doing homework at Reed. 8 would be closer to the truth.</p>
<p>I don’t know if that’s the average. I know many people who do more work than me and some who do less. But it’s how much time I need to prepare for the next day, usually.</p>
<p>Plus an average of two hours per day in lecture/conference, plus labs if any, if I remember correctly.</p>
<p>I think 3 hours of homework per day at any SLAC is very much on the light side.</p>
<p>Soooo why is Reed so notoriously rigorous?</p>
<p>Why does any school have the culture and features it has? </p>
<p>In Reed’s case it probably goes back to its being founded explicitly in reaction to the “prevailing model of East Coast, Ivy League education,” giving rise to its lack of varsity athletics, fraternities, and exclusive social clubs – as well as its coeducational, nonsectarian, and egalitarian status – leading to an intensely academic and intellectual college whose purpose was to devote itself to “the life of the mind,” that life being understood primarily as the academic life. (from Wikipedia)</p>
<p>I feel like I didn’t apply to enough schools, but I don’t even know where else I could have applied…</p>
<p>Haverford, Davidson (both due 1/15)</p>
<p>Good luck with all your applications, OP. I’m sure you’ll get into several places and will find one that is the best fit for you.</p>
<p>My advice with Reed is that if you don’t really want to go there, then don’t apply. They really want students who show interest and desire to be there (and there is a “Why Reed” supplement that it would be hard to bs your way through). It’s a unique place which leads to a lot of self-selection among applicants (and an overly inflated acceptance rate). I went there and I personally loved it. I think some of your problems with Reed are not quite accurate, so I wanted to throw in my $0.02.</p>
<p>“On one hand I like that it’s intellectual and very nerdy, it’s got a great location, and the academics are pretty much unbeatable. That said, I’m worried about the rigidity of the academic program, getting a minimum of three hours of work per night, the difficult of double majoring, the FA not being better than my other choices, and the pretentiousness.”</p>
<p>Intellectual- yes. Nerdy- somewhat, I’d also include moderate doses of dorky, geeky, brainy, artsy, quirky, bright, inquisitive, multidimensional, and some hipster and hippie types to round out that list. Location- great, it is actually in a city unlike most LACs, and that city kicks ass. Under two hours to the ocean or mountains. Academics unbeatable- yes. And the professors are amazing. It’s really a fantastic education, if you are going to college primarily to learn.</p>
<p>Rigidity of the academic program- There is a ONE year core humanities course that covers ancient civilizations, mainly Greece and Rome. Some majors require a second humanities course in either Renaissance, Enlightenment-WWII, or Chinese thought. There are distribution requirements, where you have to take two classes in each category:
Literature/Philosophy/Religion/the Arts,
History/Social Sciences/Psychology,
Math/Logic/Foreign Language/Linguistics,
Lab Science, and
Your choice.
Most schools are going to have some sort of general education requirements, and I feel like Reeds allows a decent amount of leeway in picking which classes you’d like to take within those areas. I didn’t feel like it was restrictive, but someone who wants to only study in their major all the time might (then again, that person would probably not enjoy a LAC). Each major and discipline has its own requirements as well.
There is a junior qualification examination that can be a weekend to a semester long, depending on your major (usually it’s either a paper or essay with a 1 hour oral defense), and a year-long self-directed senior thesis. </p>
<p>True double-majors are indeed difficult and often end up taking students extra time to complete, because you have to complete two quals and two theses (though I know some people who did it in four years). However, there is an option for an ad-hoc interdisciplinary major, where you can petition to combine two subjects into one major and only write one thesis. However, a lot of students take classes in fields outside their major without getting a second major, and some use the thesis as a way to combine disciplines (like doing a biology thesis but combining elements of psychology and neuroscience, or an art thesis that relies heavily on anthropology). </p>
<p>Minimum of three hours of homework each night- as others have said, this is par for the course at most good LACs, if not optimistically low. I’d estimate I usually did 5-6 hours of homework a night at Reed, excluding any extra time for major papers/projects/finals/tests (and the time I spent in class). Obviously, that varies person to person. The workload increases each year, so that senior year is the most intense (but hopefully you have been prepared for it during your first three years). While I do not want to discount that Reed has a very intense and difficult workload, you do seem academically prepared to handle it, and the admissions office does a pretty good job of accepting people they believe have what it takes to succeed here. However, if you don’t thrive on being challenged, and would rather just “get by”, Reed is probably not the place for you.
Also, in regards to earlier comments, yes, people work hard at Reed and make academics a priority, but they do not spend every waking second in the library. People who learn time management skills early on do well here, procrastinators are more likely to be stress cases. You have to identify and balance your priorities perhaps more than at other schools, but students still have social lives/ jobs/ volunteer positions/ extracurricular involvement. I think that part of the workload (that schoolwork is your entire life) is often exaggerated. There is a fantastic academic support center that offers free peer tutoring, workshops, and one-on-one meetings to help with time/workload management. And there are a lot of creative, social, and athletic outlets on and off campus. (Also, Reed does maintain a free ski cabin in Mt. Hood)</p>
<p>FA- Reed offers generous need-based financial aid, and covers 100% of your demonstrated need. Most other colleges don’t and practice “gapping” (the difference between the amount of your EFC and the amount they are asking you to pay out-of-pocket). Somewhere like Lewis and Clark might offer you a $5k merit scholarship, $2k in work study, the max amount of federal loans, and tell you to take out the rest ($20k+) in private loans, whereas Reed gave me over $35k in institutional grants (along with work study and federal loans/grants). The caveat is this makes Reed need aware, but that only affects a small percentage of admissions decisions. The main gripe with FA is that people may disagree with their EFC, which is based on FAFSA and the CSS PROFILE, but that’s not a problem unique to Reed.</p>
<p>Pretentiousness/ Elitism/ Coldness - obviously this is somewhat subjective, as I had a very different experience of Reed than what ella recounted (and I’m sorry your dorm host wasn’t that awesome). I wouldn’t call Reed elitist, because people go there for the education and not for its “name”, plus there is a de-emphasis on grades that greatly reduces cutthroat competition that you might see at other similar schools. Some students come from privileged backgrounds, but it’s not something to brag or show off about. You’ll see more complaints about people not showering enough than feeling pressured to carry the newest name brand handbag. Pretentiousness/ trying too hard to be philosophical- some students are, but I wouldn’t say it characterizes the student body as a whole. Sometimes former high school superstar freshman end up running their mouth more than they should when they first get here, the “I know everything” types, but by sophomore year they usually realize they actually don’t. I’d say a lot of people have a low BS tolerance and won’t hesitate to question people who are just trying to sound smart. At the same time, some students just ARE ridiculously smart and kind of on their own plane. Cold/aloof- I think this is a misconception of Reedies, and is actually due to social awkwardness (like “I don’t know how to make small talk, so I’ll just avoid making eye contact with people…”).</p>
<p>Reed is a very unique place that is not for everyone, so you really gotta do your research and visit if you can to see if it’s right for you. I would take a lot of comments on CC with a grain of salt, as they as more often based on stereotypes than firsthand knowledge (and that goes for more than just Reed).</p>
<p>PS Sorry this got so ridiculously long!</p>