Grinnell

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is EXTREMELY isolated and increasingly dangerous. Meth town. The townies are bad news.

The streets around campus are wide and leafy, filled with classic midwestern craftsman and Victorian homes with broad porches. There’s an independent cinema, a family owned shoe store where your kids can buy warm boots and Birkenstocks, a foodie restaurant with craft cocktails, an indie coffee shop, a great farmers market, a decent little grocer, garden club planters on every block, lots of parking, a preschool where students volunteer or work or do research on developmental psychology. There’s not a lot of anything, it’s true, but the feel everywhere near campus is that of a sleepy midwestern town.

Talk about student stress levels and outcome. Also, is it really so elite or just another LAC.

TBH, I think the people most concerned with the term “elite” probably aren’t going to choose Grinnell over better-known brands. That’s one of the things I personally appreciated about the place — it filtered out a certain kind of prestige-hungry personality, and those types don’t tend to be my best-fit crowd.

Are Grinnellians smart? Very. Are they motivated? Definitely. Do they work hard? Absolutely. Do they have wide interests? That they do! Can a kid go from Grinnell to anywhere? Sure, though a direct path to Wall Street is less well-trod than at other schools. But are they “elite?” I think if you were to ask that of most Grinnellians they’d look at you curiously. That’s just not the ethos. Whether that’s a feature or a bug depends on who you are.

I suspect that this ethos reduces stress on campus. I get the sense that while kids work hard, they don’t feel like they’re competing with each other. It’s a lot of work, but it’s not cutthroat. And midwestern nice is a real thing, which helps.

I’m probably not best positioned to talk about outcomes — anything I’d have to say would be anecdotal. There’s an active career center, $ for internships, and they have a great track record with STEM PhDs, med school, law school, etc. But like other LACs, they are not a pre-professional school. Again, this is a feature or a bug, depending on who you are and what you think the purpose of college is.

Hope this is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is EXTREMELY isolated and increasingly dangerous. Meth town. The townies are bad news.

The streets around campus are wide and leafy, filled with classic midwestern craftsman and Victorian homes with broad porches. There’s an independent cinema, a family owned shoe store where your kids can buy warm boots and Birkenstocks, a foodie restaurant with craft cocktails, an indie coffee shop, a great farmers market, a decent little grocer, garden club planters on every block, lots of parking, a preschool where students volunteer or work or do research on developmental psychology. There’s not a lot of anything, it’s true, but the feel everywhere near campus is that of a sleepy midwestern town.

Talk about student stress levels and outcome. Also, is it really so elite or just another LAC.

Not elite. Boring and full of SJW tryhards who couldn’t get into an ivy.

I don't know a single one of DC's friends who applied to Ivies. Most were ISO LACs and many wanted to get off east/west coasts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is EXTREMELY isolated and increasingly dangerous. Meth town. The townies are bad news.

The streets around campus are wide and leafy, filled with classic midwestern craftsman and Victorian homes with broad porches. There’s an independent cinema, a family owned shoe store where your kids can buy warm boots and Birkenstocks, a foodie restaurant with craft cocktails, an indie coffee shop, a great farmers market, a decent little grocer, garden club planters on every block, lots of parking, a preschool where students volunteer or work or do research on developmental psychology. There’s not a lot of anything, it’s true, but the feel everywhere near campus is that of a sleepy midwestern town.

Talk about student stress levels and outcome. Also, is it really so elite or just another LAC.

Not elite. Boring and full of SJW tryhards who couldn’t get into an ivy.

If this sort of comment and attitude resonates for you, Grinnell probably isn’t the place! Take that as you will. It’s all good information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is EXTREMELY isolated and increasingly dangerous. Meth town. The townies are bad news.

The streets around campus are wide and leafy, filled with classic midwestern craftsman and Victorian homes with broad porches. There’s an independent cinema, a family owned shoe store where your kids can buy warm boots and Birkenstocks, a foodie restaurant with craft cocktails, an indie coffee shop, a great farmers market, a decent little grocer, garden club planters on every block, lots of parking, a preschool where students volunteer or work or do research on developmental psychology. There’s not a lot of anything, it’s true, but the feel everywhere near campus is that of a sleepy midwestern town.

Talk about student stress levels and outcome. Also, is it really so elite or just another LAC.

Not elite. Boring and full of SJW tryhards who couldn’t get into an ivy.

If this sort of comment and attitude resonates for you, Grinnell probably isn’t the place! Take that as you will. It’s all good information.

I am from the Midwest and Grinnell was a popular choice for its size from my high school. It was a well regarded choice. My classmates went their to study pre-med, and they did quite well. One played football which he enjoyed, especially since he didn't start for our high school team - he is a physician now. The catch is that it is a really small town in Iowa. The upside is that Iowa people are very genuine and down to earth. I was a futures trader and spent time with pork producers in the area on hedging plans. Grinnell is very highly thought of. Of course this is all anecdotal but if you can come around to Iowa, I suspect Grinnell would lead to great outcomes.

[Anonymous]

For my son’s last 2 years at Grinnell he and his friends rented the house where Harry Hopkins lived. That’s not something you see everyday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC told me they were accepted a couple of hours ago. I don't know anything about the school but the acceptance rate is 11%. What should I know? They were also offered a large merit scholarship ($25K/year)

Same here, seems like DC applied by accident. Never realized their acceptance rate is so low.

How is the overall student community, any geek scene, and what should we know.

Just stop it. Your kid didn’t apply by accident.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS was accepted too! How does it compare to Honors programs at top state flagships (ex. Michigan or UNC)? He was also accepted to both of those...

I would pick Michigan. Grinnell is tiny and isolated. And the town sucks.

Mary Sue Coleman, the former esteemed president of Michigan, is a Grinnell grad. She’d disagree I bet.

[Anonymous]

My kid graduated from Grinnell a ways back and so did their spouse. They picked it over several very good options (William & Mary in state, Carleton, etc) both because they liked the school and because they got a lot of merit aid. Back in the day it had a reputation for being just as rigorous as the top LACs in the northeast and with the same academic reputation as those schools with the top graduate and professional schools while being less difficult to get into and attracting a less prestige obsessed type of applicant. It’s not like that anymore. There’s a lot of debate among alums over whether this is a good or bad thing.

[Anonymous]

People are overstating Grinnell’s isolation. It’s located in a rural community, but so are many SLACs - and this one has several streets of commercial activity, and a Wal-Mart, and about 20 non-chain restaurants, so it actually offers more than many (in part because Grinnell is an ag and manufacturing site and not just a ‘college town’). The town of Grinnell is virtually atop the main east-west interstate across Iowa, and it’s midway between Des Moines (45 minutes away, a surprisingly sophisticated state capital and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the Midwest, and significantly larger than Portland ME, Madison, Savannah or New Haven) and Iowa City (60 minutes away), a classic lively Big Ten university town. You could find many SLACs on the east coast that are in fact more ‘isolated’ (the primary difference between Grinnell’s ‘isolation’ and that of many colleges on the east coast is that when Grinnell kids go to a nearby city for fun, they drive past 45-60 minutes of flat cornfields rather than past suburban tracts homes, but honestly to a 20 year old that’s really not much different).

I mean, Grinnell isn’t Bethesda or McLean, but I assume most posters here understand that’s not necessarily what four years of college is supposed to be about.

Oh, and the average SAT score of Iowa high school students is among the ten highest in the country, and higher than in VA, MD and DC, so some commenters might want to dial down their anti-rural anti-midwestern snobbery just a bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are overstating Grinnell’s isolation. It’s located in a rural community, but so are many SLACs - and this one has several streets of commercial activity, and a Wal-Mart, and about 20 non-chain restaurants, so it actually offers more than many (in part because Grinnell is an ag and manufacturing site and not just a ‘college town’). The town of Grinnell is virtually atop the main east-west interstate across Iowa, and it’s midway between Des Moines (45 minutes away, a surprisingly sophisticated state capital and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the Midwest, and significantly larger than Portland ME, Madison, Savannah or New Haven) and Iowa City (60 minutes away), a classic lively Big Ten university town. You could find many SLACs on the east coast that are in fact more ‘isolated’ (the primary difference between Grinnell’s ‘isolation’ and that of many colleges on the east coast is that when Grinnell kids go to a nearby city for fun, they drive past 45-60 minutes of flat cornfields rather than past suburban tracts homes, but honestly to a 20 year old that’s really not much different).

I mean, Grinnell isn’t Bethesda or McLean, but I assume most posters here understand that’s not necessarily what four years of college is supposed to be about.

Oh, and the average SAT score of Iowa high school students is among the ten highest in the country, and higher than in VA, MD and DC, so some commenters might want to dial down their anti-rural anti-midwestern snobbery just a bit.

I don’t think you will get tremendous buy in that Iowans are all that intellectual (Grinnell being the exception). There are way too many Trump supporters which indicates mental illness or low IQ.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is a small, liberal arts school that itself is very liberal. It is 30 minutes from Des Moines but draws from all over the country.

So true. CA and NY are well represented.

As are many foreign countries. Grinnell has an unusually high percentage of international students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are overstating Grinnell’s isolation. It’s located in a rural community, but so are many SLACs - and this one has several streets of commercial activity, and a Wal-Mart, and about 20 non-chain restaurants, so it actually offers more than many (in part because Grinnell is an ag and manufacturing site and not just a ‘college town’). The town of Grinnell is virtually atop the main east-west interstate across Iowa, and it’s midway between Des Moines (45 minutes away, a surprisingly sophisticated state capital and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the Midwest, and significantly larger than Portland ME, Madison, Savannah or New Haven) and Iowa City (60 minutes away), a classic lively Big Ten university town. You could find many SLACs on the east coast that are in fact more ‘isolated’ (the primary difference between Grinnell’s ‘isolation’ and that of many colleges on the east coast is that when Grinnell kids go to a nearby city for fun, they drive past 45-60 minutes of flat cornfields rather than past suburban tracts homes, but honestly to a 20 year old that’s really not much different).

I mean, Grinnell isn’t Bethesda or McLean, but I assume most posters here understand that’s not necessarily what four years of college is supposed to be about.

Oh, and the average SAT score of Iowa high school students is among the ten highest in the country, and higher than in VA, MD and DC, so some commenters might want to dial down their anti-rural anti-midwestern snobbery just a bit.

I don’t think you will get tremendous buy in that Iowans are all that intellectual (Grinnell being the exception). There are way too many Trump supporters which indicates mental illness or low IQ.

Im not sure the mean or median IQ of Biden vs, Trump voters is that different, if anything you may be disappointed with the results,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People are overstating Grinnell’s isolation. It’s located in a rural community, but so are many SLACs - and this one has several streets of commercial activity, and a Wal-Mart, and about 20 non-chain restaurants, so it actually offers more than many (in part because Grinnell is an ag and manufacturing site and not just a ‘college town’). The town of Grinnell is virtually atop the main east-west interstate across Iowa, and it’s midway between Des Moines (45 minutes away, a surprisingly sophisticated state capital and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the Midwest, and significantly larger than Portland ME, Madison, Savannah or New Haven) and Iowa City (60 minutes away), a classic lively Big Ten university town. You could find many SLACs on the east coast that are in fact more ‘isolated’ (the primary difference between Grinnell’s ‘isolation’ and that of many colleges on the east coast is that when Grinnell kids go to a nearby city for fun, they drive past 45-60 minutes of flat cornfields rather than past suburban tracts homes, but honestly to a 20 year old that’s really not much different).

I mean, Grinnell isn’t Bethesda or McLean, but I assume most posters here understand that’s not necessarily what four years of college is supposed to be about.

Oh, and the average SAT score of Iowa high school students is among the ten highest in the country, and higher than in VA, MD and DC, so some commenters might want to dial down their anti-rural anti-midwestern snobbery just a bit.

OMG. Why argue that Grinnell isn't in the middle of nowhere?

Grinnell has some fine qualities, but location isn't one of them. Its geography is an enormous liability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People are overstating Grinnell’s isolation. It’s located in a rural community, but so are many SLACs - and this one has several streets of commercial activity, and a Wal-Mart, and about 20 non-chain restaurants, so it actually offers more than many (in part because Grinnell is an ag and manufacturing site and not just a ‘college town’). The town of Grinnell is virtually atop the main east-west interstate across Iowa, and it’s midway between Des Moines (45 minutes away, a surprisingly sophisticated state capital and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the Midwest, and significantly larger than Portland ME, Madison, Savannah or New Haven) and Iowa City (60 minutes away), a classic lively Big Ten university town. You could find many SLACs on the east coast that are in fact more ‘isolated’ (the primary difference between Grinnell’s ‘isolation’ and that of many colleges on the east coast is that when Grinnell kids go to a nearby city for fun, they drive past 45-60 minutes of flat cornfields rather than past suburban tracts homes, but honestly to a 20 year old that’s really not much different).

I mean, Grinnell isn’t Bethesda or McLean, but I assume most posters here understand that’s not necessarily what four years of college is supposed to be about.

Oh, and the average SAT score of Iowa high school students is among the ten highest in the country, and higher than in VA, MD and DC, so some commenters might want to dial down their anti-rural anti-midwestern snobbery just a bit.

OMG. Why argue that Grinnell isn't in the middle of nowhere?

Grinnell has some fine qualities, but location isn't one of them. Its geography is an enormous liability.

True, location is just way too isolated, no party secene, and students are really quirky. I guess Grinnell tends to admit high IQ or gifted kids only who are happy with its middle of nowhere location.

[Anonymous]

My son (2025) is being recruited by Grinnell.
I’m concerned that if he gets in, it will be too hard for him. His sport has a long season, he has ADHD and takes a bit longer to get his work done.

Do those familiar with the school think it’s possible for a hard working kid who has a lot of demands from his sport and who isn’t really that into school. He does well and works hard but I can tell it’s all a struggle and he hates it.

Don’t want him to be miserable, fail out or just compare himself to others and think he isn’t good enough.