<p>topic ^^^^</p>
<p>What would you like to know?</p>
<p>Atmosphere
Campus
student body
Academics
etc</p>
<p>Maybe you should search some of the previous threads so that you can ask more specific questions. I believe there have been some good summaries.
Oberlin is discussed quite frequently. It is a small, fairly liberal LAC about 30 miles outside of Cleveland surrounded by cornfields. It has an excellent conservatory, weak athletics and a bright student body. The students are on the quirky side, but there is a wide range.</p>
<p>ya Oberlin...it was love at first sight....i am headed there in 2 weeks to start my first year. check the web site. and the current student live journal . the only downside i can think of is that it is reeeeeally midwest flat. and some people think the climate is bad but i live in dc and it's about 168 degrees today. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/%5B/url%5D">http://www.oberlin.edu/</a>
<a href="http://www.livejournal.com/community/oberlin/%5B/url%5D">http://www.livejournal.com/community/oberlin/</a></p>
<p>Yeah I was wondering about Oberlin also.. is it in the middle of no where? I mean, Ohio... seems like it.</p>
<p>Although Oberlin is only 30 miles south of Cleveland, which is a lovely large city, it is in a VERY rural setting. Yes, it is in the middle of a corn field. And Ohio is NOT all corn field.</p>
<p>but is there stuff to do close by? I mean, I'll have a car. So is it like completely isolated and I HAVE to always go to cleveland to visit civilization?</p>
<p>No, there is nothing to do close by, but there is lots to do on campus.</p>
<p>MY observations:
-Atmosphere/ student body is intellectually engaging and politically aware.<br>
-There is not a large contingent of Republicans.
-no frats; team sports not real big. Great athletics dept. course offerings though.
- Many students from the east & west coasts.
-Campus was quite attractive to me when I was there this Fall, with the leaves & all. Town too. Some others have said campus looked run-down in spots. I didn't see that part.
- Academics/courses have been really excellent so far. Academics are very serious.
-Tons of music performances, theater, etc, going on all the time on campus.
- Located in a town of 8,000 in a "small town" part of Ohio.<br>
- Cleveland and its suburbs are quite driveable, but there's a lot to do right on campus. I don't think that people are emptying the place to head for Cleveland on weekends. In fact my daughter hasn't even visited Cleveland at all, though she has lots of friends that have cars.</p>
<p>These are my impressions, but my info is mostly 2nd hand. The Livejournal suggestion is a good one, I''d think.</p>
<p>My daughter will start at Oberlin in about two weeks. If you can visit while school is in session, it will probably take all of fifteen minutes to decide that you either love or hate the place.</p>
<p>The "middle of a cornfield" thing is a bit of an exaggeration. Oberlin is on the rural side of the suburban spectrum, but it does have a population of 8,000 or so. Yeah, there are some folks with a few acres of corn in the vicinity, but don't envision a solid wall of cornstalks that starts wherever the college ends. No Starbucks or Borders, but a quirky little "downtown" area right next to the school with some nice restaurants, the college bookstore, an old-fashioned 5&10 department store and a few trendy boutiques that come and go from year to year. As one of Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion ads might say, "If we don't have it, you probably don't need it."</p>
<p>Given its size and location, Oberlin is far more cosmopolitan than you might expect. The college and particularly the conservatory draw students from around the world. They run hundreds of concerts a year, ranging from quite good student recitals to the world's best-known artists. The art museum would be an unexpected treasure in a city a hundred times larger than Oberlin. Go to the school website and take a look at the calendar of events and I think you will get the idea.</p>
<p>The school is known for its historically liberal attitudes. Most of the students seem pretty tolerant of each other's political and social leanings, but a few go overboard with in-your-face political correctness or a "hippier than thou" mentality. There are a large number of cooperatives for things from housing to meals to bicycles to cameras/film.</p>
<p>If you are looking for the Boston-style college experience or the big State-U experience with 80,000 screaming fans in the football stadium every other weekend, then Oberlin is not going to be your cup of tea.</p>
<p>As far as isolation goes, Ohio isn't very big and you're very close to Cleveland and it's not too far from Columbus either. I would call Oberlin (the town) rural, but the studens are very active and you won't be bored. Something is constantly going on.</p>
<p>Oberlin has an excellent national reputation, and, based on past USNWR rankings, is the top liberal arts college in Ohio. It's very well known for two things: an outstanding music department and a student body with a very liberal slant. The focus at the school is definitely on academics - its athletics program consistently finishes near the bottom of the NCAC all-sports competition each year.</p>
<p>Middle of nowhere? ......no, it is only about an hour from Cleveland which i thiks gets a lot of bad press but seems like an ok city...it's just that it turns rural reall fast....there arent endless miles of suburbs between Cleveland and Oberlin. so Oberlin is in a rural setting...its actuall really pretty ...when i visited again later in the spring we drove around in the countryside one afternoon. (we had to make a pilgramidge to this famous high performance auto shop in a nearby small town) what i love about the Oberlin campus is that it is right in the small town on the edge of the tiny downtown...so it really feels like a real place...and i think there are ok town gown relationships but some friction .... unlike some lacs which seems like little cute college enclaves. The campus itself is attractive but not overly so. there are plenty of ugly buildings from the 70s mixed with the pretty buildings. so it has a scruffy lived-in feeling.... which i think is reflective of the campus culture....bass dad's description is right on... oberlin has a historic connection to the underground railroad so there i think there is a national park service " african american history walking tour" type thing but i havent explored that. The whole cleveland area has that history too. there is a bike coop so if you join you can work on bikes and build your own bike for pennies or bring your own bike. a friend of my moms told me there used to be a bike demolition derby at the end of every year for riders to trash the really bad bikes. but it got too rowdy and too many people got hurt but he said it was a blast. (im sorry for all the typos but the keeys are sticking on this laptop) and the apostrophy key is missing....oh yeah and there are a lot of african americans in town (unlike the Maine schools i applied to) so being from dc i felt comfortable....i ate at this pizza and wings place with some students and had 3 helping of these awesome wings (god they were so hot) and the older black waitess joked around with us and said about my and my 3 empty plates "he eats pretty good for a white boy"...and everybody laughed..it was really comfortable...i just know its the right school for me. it was agony being on the waist for a month....but in all honesty is is a very specific kind of place...it is definitely not a pristine new england college......you have to visit...do the college sponsored trip in the fall without your parents..and see what yu think.</p>
<p>I recall it being more like 40 minutes to Cleveland.
And actually it felt to me like there WERE miles and miles of suburbs in between. I drove her to some pretty huge malls to go shopping, about 20-30 minutes away, right off of some highway or other.</p>
<p>There's stuff in some of the surrounding nearby towns, too.</p>
<p>monydad...yep youre right ...maybe it was closer to cleveland ...but i was maybe comparing it to the dc area where you drive 40 minutes and its still all connected. sprawl... the drive from cleveland seemed like Cleveland....suburbs......rural...turn right ...little island: oberlin. still a small farm center/ 19th century mercantile looking town ...youre right if you drive out the other end....there are big box stores. still its very pretty around the town. in a flat kind of way..itll take getting used to .</p>
<p>'..in a flat kind of way.."</p>
<p>That reminded me, you new people might consider taking a bicycle with you, if you've got an-off-road kind that might be good for taking you laden with books, etc. Apparently it's a good way to get around there. When I went to those huge malls, one of my tasks was to buy one.</p>
<p>A bike is a great idea. The campus is compact, but there may be times that you want to get across it in a 3-minute bike ride rather than a 15 minute walk. You don't want or need anything too fancy because the place is very flat and bikes occasionally turn up missing. Usually they are found elsewhere on campus, having been unoficially borrowed by another student in need. </p>
<p>Rather than buying a shiny new 17-speed mountain bike at the mall, you might want to check out the bike co-op (see <a href="http://www.oberlin.edu/stuorg/bikecoop/%5B/url%5D">http://www.oberlin.edu/stuorg/bikecoop/</a>). They fix up bikes that have been donated or abandoned and rent them out to students on the cheap.</p>