<p>very very very very very walkable!! And it is two blocks from the school. Wal-Mart is not in walking distance, but you can get a ride there from someone with a car or I think the school has some kind of ride service (It does have a rental car system where you can take a car out for an hour or so, even if you’re not 25, the normal rental car age).</p>
<p>You can also buy a bike from the store in town; that’s what my son did. He uses his it all the time. Not because he needs to, but because he likes to. It is actually beautiful biking country – rolling farmlands and wide open sky. He will store his bike somewhere at school over the summer.</p>
<p>I should add that Grinnell is like many American towns – a charming historic district, and then streets that fan out from there with some of the usual American chains (the aforementioned Wal-mart, a pizza one (I forget which) a Taco Bell, I think, etc., plus some other locally owned stores). So, some is within walking distance and some things are not (like Wal-Mart; although it’s only about two miles? or less? but something on that order). It is the central town that is two blocks from the college. The town is laid out on a grid pattern as well, so it’s easy to find your way.</p>
<p>Grinnell is very very very walkable. When I visited, I noticed that everything in town is closer than the distance I walk or bike to my high school.</p>
<p>I would suggest you wait until you’ve spent some time there before deciding about a bike. It is a short easy walk to get anywhere on campus. Just make sure you have warm clothes for the winter. You can easily walk to anything you need in the town, including a nice little supermarket. Unless you love bike-riding for fun, you won’t need one. And you don’t need a car either. My son is a graduating senior and has never wished he had a bike or car. Cars can be rented for about $7 per hour (that includes insurance and gas) but my son has always had friends who would drive him or lend him a car. One friend even let him borrow his car to drive to CA for spring break. Talk about nice kids! I’ve always told him to be generous with paying for gas when using someone else’s car or riding with a friend.</p>
<p>I’m so excited about Grinnell, and I’m visiting this week, but I just have a quick question for people who know what they’re talking about. I visited Reed College a while ago, and I decided I didn’t want to go because everyone I met seemed irritatingly loud. Are people at Grinnell like this, or is there a reasonable number of quieter people?</p>
<p>D graduated 2 yrs ago and has been accepted by about 60% of law schools to
which she applied, most with nice merit scholarships. She was helped by
great internships while at Grinnell, very responsible public interest job upon graduation, and thoughtful rec letters from faculty who knew her very well.
Rumor has it that U Iowa (ranked about #25) has accepted almost all Grinnell grads who’ve applied.</p>
<p>We returned from summer visit to campus recently with my rising senior son and are absolutely enthralled. </p>
<p>The campus is remarkably beautiful, with dorms lining two sides of campus and the library, student center/dining hall and athletic facilities anchoring the other sides and middle of the campus. New construction is graceful and interesting. Athletic facilities are amazing for a school this size. </p>
<p>Tour guide was personal – there were perhaps 5 students visiting throughout that morning, and each family had their own tour guide for an individual tour. Perhaps that can only be managed in summer hours when numbers are down, but this provided a very warm, personal touch to the experience.</p>
<p>Admission session was thoughtful, intelligent and well-organized, echoing the messages from the tour. Described Grinnell students as fundamentally “passionate” about something, not necessarily the same things. </p>
<p>My son, who generally thinks he is not an LAC kind of kid, loved Grinnell – from the description of 1st year tutorials with the professor serving as your advisor until you choose a major, to the relatively high percentage of students playing sports, and the principle of self-gov and student independence. Liked the diversity within the narrow range of students he saw – athletes, groovy front-porch-sitters in the nearby residential neighborhood, and multi-colored hair/multiple piercing students he saw on campus. </p>
<p>My son found it less “precious” than Kenyon, though it is hard to compare fairly when he visited Kenyon in session and Grinnell in the summer. He is definitely going back to visit/overnight in the fall. What a gem of a school.</p>
<p>Can I ask what you mean by “precious” about Kenyon? We visited there last week for D2, and are planning a visit to Grinnell this fall. Just trying to figure out what you/your son means, it isn’t obvious to me…</p>
<p>I guess I would describe as an awareness of being special, hip etc – from my son"s perspective. While we are originally from the East coast, we have been in Midwest for 10 years, and he has developed an aversion to anything that seems over-the-top. If I could parse his reaction to the two schools, it is that Grinnell seemed more “regular” and Kenyon more aware of how cool it was. Again, trying to articulate a 17 year old’ s reaction . . .As a parent, they are each wonderful places with many common elements and I could see him thriving in each place.</p>
<p>I should add, Kenyon was his first college visit, on a Junior Visit day, so he was surrounded, for the first time, with messages about one particular school. He enjoyed it while he was there, especially the vibe at the coffee shop, Middle Grounds. Afterwards, he thought that perhaps the students were a bit self-consciously hip for him. With Grinnell, college visit #4, he is getting accustomed to the experience and developing his judgment more.</p>
<p>Midwestmomofboys–Our reactions to Grinnell were identical to yours and yes, I think they always assign one tour guide per family, though I could be wrong. My son absolutely loved his 4 years there. The lack of pretentiousness was one of the things he loved best. We didn’t visit Kenyon so I can’t comment on that. My niece loves Kenyon though, and she is totally not pretentious. She wishes it had a town connected with it, but otherwise is very happy there. From the descriptions of the student bodies at both places, Grinnell students are more unconventional thinkers and I think this is true.</p>
<p>My D applied to both Grinnell and Kenyon and we visited both. Both are great schools. As Bethievt indicated, Grinnell and its students are somewhat more unconventional than Kenyon. I hate to use the word since it tends to be overused, but Grinnell is a bit more quirky than Kenyon. Kenyon also has a fraternity/sorority presence which is absent at Grinnell. We didn’t find that oppressive, but it is there and gives Kenyon a different vibe. Kenyon is a bit more buttoned down than Grinnell. It certainly has a beautiful campus and is even more “small town” than Grinnell. That said, my D liked both Kenyon and Grinnell, although she ultimately chose not to go to either. She did like Kenyon better than Grinnell and almost decided to go there, but I put that down to Kenyon being a much later visit in the Spring, whereas Grinnell was one of her first visits and it was still Winter at the time. Purely a subjective “fit” decision on her part.</p>
<p>One of the things that has impressed me about Grinnell is how self-aware and analytical it is as an institution and how open it is about this process. Now, the school is embarking on the next phase of Strategic Planning and is making it an open, collaborative process with the campus community. Check out the website (it’s the lead story right now) and read this interview with President Kington in the student newspaper:</p>
<p>adding Social Justice Prize to the list of “why Grinnell?”</p>
<p>The symposium brought the prize winners (innovators in Social Justice under the age of 40) to campus for a multi-day series of events – informal coffee hours, classroom visits, roundtable discussions, formal speeches. The Career Development Office also met with the winners to discuss internship possibilities for students. </p>
<p>Just speaking personally from my son’s experience: he found the program inspiring, and he is already acting on some own personal initiatives on campus as a result.</p>
<p>To me, this program is a wonderful blend of “ivory tower” learning and real-world discussion. Nominees for the prize had to demonstrate not only innovation, but “substantive contribution” to the community in which he/she is involved.</p>
<p>Hi everyone,
We are just now starting the college search process for my sophomore son. Grinnell sounds wonderful; intellectual but friendly and welcoming. Can anyone comment on the quality of the math program? He will be a math or physics major. Thank you!</p>