I know Reed students are very academically-driven, which suits me. I was recently accepted as a transfer and was wondering what a Reed student is like. Honestly I’m afraid Reed students are tooo nerdy for me…Like was does the average Reed student like to do? I’m looking for a school with outdoor adventure and the arts, though not a school with a lot of video-gamers, etc. Any insight would be so helpful!!! It seems like a great school.
This is the weekend of the big annual almost end-of-year party at Reed. So there will be zero numbers of current students staying up late answering questions on internet boards on this weekend.
Your question “What is a Reedie?” is actually answered in the pages of Reed Magazine.
If you go to the magazine’s web page ( http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/ ), type “what is a reedie” in the text entry box on the right side of the page under “Browse Archives”, you will get links to a number of profiles of recent graduates from recent classes. The profiles have the student’s own quotes about the feel of Reed. Read those quotes to answer your question.
My own impression from observations over my offspring’s past four years, is that the sentence one staffer told me when we first looked at the school correct. That is: ‘outliers are in the majority’ . Asking about the average student isn’t quite the most meaningful sampling approach, as a significant number of students are quite a ways off the mean, and maybe off of the mean of continuum axes that you might not of even spent any time considering before.
Different arts are majors, Reed isn’t Caltech. And non-art majors also fashion art, just for art’s sake.
Reed has a ski cabin, and an outdoor group. I think more than half a dozen students took the ‘climb the 1000 foot wall at Smith Rocks’ option for a pre-orientation trip along with my son. As another example, a couple years ago a bio major jogged the trail around Mt. Rainier (93 miles, with 22,000 feet of elevation gain) in under 27 hours. So chances are, if you come to Reed, you’ll be able to find somebody who will be able to at least keep up with you, in what ever outdoor adventure you are willing to try.