Does anyone know what the student body is like? I know schools like Wesleyan and Oberlin are known for being artsy, while schools like Colgate and Bates are know for being preppy. Do most Brandeis students fit in to one of these categories, or is it a harder student body to stereotype?
My younger son will be attending Bates this fall. We visited 15 schools from Maine to Virginia. He comes from an all male school.
The student body at Bates is nearly impossible to generalize about especially after visiting schools like Colgate, Bucknell, Washington & Lee, Colby and Middlebury.
At one moment its classic New England pink shirt prep and you turn and there is a hipster on a skate board.
The incoming class is 37% kids of color.
Asian kids were noticeably a small part of the student body.
Anyway, it is diverse in a lot of ways and the student body is exceptionally outgoing. Perhaps because they are so close the kids at Bowdoin and Bates are a lot alike.
The vibe at Bates is much different than Colgate, not nearly as preppy.
Any other thoughts? Especially about Brandeis…
Given Brandeis roots as a Jewish school and the large portion of Jewish students, I would think the campus cultures are very different.
You should visit both and decide which would make you happier.
Of course you can generalize about any student body, but if you visit a school you will always find exceptions to the stereotypes.
When we visited Brandeis it was during the school break, so we didn’t see a huge number of kids, but the ones who conducted the tour struck us as pleasantly quirky. Definitely not preppy/conservative, though I’m sure they can be found there too. Sample size of two.
@2019Parent I’m a little confused by your comment. What effect do you think that would have?
@lalalemma Nothing in a negative sense but I wouldn’t think it unusual for a school established quite recently as a Jewish community school with 50% Jewish students to have a different campus culture as a purely nonsectarian school like Bates.
The motto of the school is in Hebrew and Hebrew is on the school shield.
I am sure this has changed since its formation but the school self identifies as a Jewish community school to this day.
The tone of your reply suggests you thought I was being judgmental but I was just stating a fact.
Boston College was founded as a Catholic school and is 70% catholic so wouldn’t you assume there is a Catholic vibe?
I will concede that Catholics are much more symbolic, but you get my point.
@2019Parent Brandeis is also non-sectarian. Where have you seen them identify as a Jewish community school?
Maybe I am a little sensitive to this topic because I’m Jewish myself, and I just don’t really get why people think of us as people that are “other” or would add a different vibe or something like that. Most of the Jews I know (including myself) don’t keep kosher or follow any of the laws, don’t really believe in God, know little to no Hebrew, are definitely not Zionists, and spend far less time in synagogue than our Christian friends do in church. I don’t think there’s anything about me and my Jewish friends that would strike you as particularly Jewish, and you would only really find out by asking about our heritage or our Bar/Bat Mitzvahs. So I don’t get how we could really add a different vibe when we blend right with most WASPs our age. Speaking of which, why do you think Jews would add more of a vibe to a campus than WASPs would?
I’m really sorry if any of that came off as confrontational. This stuff has been on my mind a lot lately because of the UCLA case and all the other borderline anti-Semitic campus incidents that have been popping up.
I think Brandeis’ Jewish heritage is something to be proud of, for both Jews and Brandeis.
Trying to deny it or make it not okay to say in public is silly.
@NavalTradition I really don’t think I did either of those things. I just pointed out that Brandeis is non-sectarian (which is a fact, go check if you don’t believe me) and expressed my confusion about how the presence of Jews would affect campus life.
I think if a school was 50% or so Finnish-American and established by the Finnish-American community it would be worthy of note and would probably affect campus life in some way. Even if the school wasn’t sectarian Lutheran.
Brandeis has many Jewish students, but it is not “Jewish” in the same way that, say, BC or Holy Cross are Catholic. It has no official religion, and the Judaism practiced there is about as far from Hasidic/overt Judaism as you could be.
IMO, as someone raised both Jewish and Christian, Jewish people, as a whole, are a lot more progressive, open-minded, and less “in your face” about religion than Christians (no offense). Even if a school identified as Jewish, it really wouldn’t have the same effect on the campus culture as identifying a school as Christian would (ex no abstinence, alcohol, or tobacco contracts at Brandeis).
@2019Parent Brandeis was founded by leaders of the Jewish community, but it has never been a religious school. It has been non-sectarian from the start and was formed to be a haven for all those who may be excluded from other top tier schools (the Ivies) due to religious or racial profiling and quotas.
As for Hebrew on its logo or seal, many of the Ivy league schools use Hebrew–Yale and Princeton for a start. Hebrew is considered a classical language and is often used alongside Latin and Greek.
It is true that Brandeis draws many Jewish students, although the percentage has reduced since its earlier days. Now that it has established itself as a top tier university, students from all backgrounds attend because of the quality education it offers. But in its early days it was a haven for top Jewish students who were being rejected from the Ivies due to quotas.
Brandeis is not a Yeshiva. I never said or implied that in any way. However, it has a well defined and well known Jewish heritage that is interesting and admirable.
When a school has Hebrew on the sign of the entrance of the school it is safe to say it is comfortable with its history and wants people to be aware.
Sadly many people make it a mission in life to deny history and deny heritage in an effort to homogenize all of us.
Relative to Bates, Brandeis has a strong religious character but compared to Holy Cross, Brandeis does not.
Now Bates does have a chapel, but every religion is represented by a different flag.
So no reason to be sensitive.
I’m not trying to deny heritage or history at all. I’m glad that there were people who decided that the minority quotas at the ivies were awful and decided to found a school that would welcome everyone, and I’m proud that those people were Jewish. But you still haven’t named even one way in which having slightly more Jews on campus would affect campus life in general. I do have the right to be sensitive - especially as a Jewish person - because there are a lot of stereotypes about Jews and by saying there’s a difference without being specific, you are alluding to those stereotypes. Once again, I really don’t mean to be confrontational or aggressive. But you still haven’t really answered my original question.
As for Hebrew on the seal, do you really think Yale has a Jewish history that they want people to be aware of?
I went to Harvard, which was only about half as Jewish - i.e. secular Ashkenazi - as Brandeis (~25% as opposed to ~50%). It still had a palpable effect on campus life. Electricity in the air around high holidays. Longstanding friendships growing out of Birthright and similar programs. A common allergy to religious fundamentalism, for which see Qwerty’s post as an illustration. Friendly rivalry with the WASP kids. A lot of hard to describe intangibles, too, like sense of humor.
You couldn’t swap out all those Jewish kids for Episcopalians and still have Harvard be the same place. Math 55 would be decimated, for one. And Harvard, like I said, is only about half as Jewish as Brandeis.
@NavalTradition thank you for explaining. I see what you’re saying now even if I don’t personally feel that those things are particularly apparent/important.
@lalalemma: You have an intellectually admirable quality of asking posters to clarify their positions before you comment further. I’m sure others have appreciated this as well.
I am very surprised the topic required such a specific explanation. It is quite obvious how daily campus life would be influenced.