Oberlin

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oberlin student here again. I'm genuinely interested in helping people learn more about Oberlin and decide if it's a right fit. For those of you who already seem to know that Oberlin would not be the right fit, I hope you find schools that are better for you. Why is Oberlin one of the few schools whose threads get derailed by people pointing out a lack of political diversity which could be said for many LACs and universities? As someone who actually attends, I'm not a fan of Lena Dunham but I also haven't met many people like her, at Oberlin or elsewhere. Keep in mind that every school has a few a**holes.

Yeah, I fit into the same bracket that my parents had set aside enough for state school, which I would've been happy to attend, but the opportunity to study at a college rather than a large university was too good to pass up on for me at least. I gained admission from other LACs but with less aid and to be honest, I don't think an education elsewhere would be worth 120k+ more than what Oberlin has to offer. Other full-pay LACs have similar liberal reputations like Vassar and Middlebury and Wesleyan and I don't see people always complaining about them, especially when they have no connection to the school. My good friend goes to Haverford and his parents are pissed about the strike situation last fall, which didn't seem to gain as much national coverage.

PP, thanks for taking the time to post. Good luck with your studies!

[Anonymous]

It is odd that Oberlin is discussed much more than the other schools mentioned. There was, however, a lengthy thread about Haverford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These cow-patch schools are not worth the dollars they are demanding. However, it assuages egos for FOMO parents whose DC can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges.

This! Exactly!

So what are kids who "can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges" supposed to do? Stay home? Fortunately Obama didn't throw in the towel when he was admitted to "cow-patch" Occidental.

And then there are the high-performing kids who can't pay for top ten schools but don't want the large state flagship either. Oberlin and its peers are heavily populated with those students.

And kids who didn't get into better ranked slacs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is odd that Oberlin is discussed much more than the other schools mentioned. There was, however, a lengthy thread about Haverford.

The title of the thread is "Oberlin" and the original post asks about a school called Oberlin.

[Anonymous]

What I think interests people of a certain age is that this was once a school that was kind of, sort of, thought of as an acceptable alternative for Ivy rejects. Then it went through a troubled stretch and actually took a rankings hit. But it's good to know that things seem to be getting back on track.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry, this is not a political discussion thread.

Umm, the poster who went off on the supposed lack of political diversity @ LACs injected politics into this thread.

No,. The poster commented on the lack of political diversity and the respondent introduced politics by demanding a defense of Republican political "crimes." The lack of political diversity was never disputed and in fact emphasized by the respondent's utter incapability to stick to the issue, but rather her desire to make political points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These cow-patch schools are not worth the dollars they are demanding. However, it assuages egos for FOMO parents whose DC can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges.

This! Exactly!

So what are kids who "can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges" supposed to do? Stay home? Fortunately Obama didn't throw in the towel when he was admitted to "cow-patch" Occidental.

And then there are the high-performing kids who can't pay for top ten schools but don't want the large state flagship either. Oberlin and its peers are heavily populated with those students.

And kids who didn't get into better ranked slacs?

Did you not understand the point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These cow-patch schools are not worth the dollars they are demanding. However, it assuages egos for FOMO parents whose DC can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges.

This! Exactly!

So what are kids who "can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges" supposed to do? Stay home? Fortunately Obama didn't throw in the towel when he was admitted to "cow-patch" Occidental.

And then there are the high-performing kids who can't pay for top ten schools but don't want the large state flagship either. Oberlin and its peers are heavily populated with those students.

And kids who didn't get into better ranked slacs?

Did you not understand the point?

What is the point? That Oberlin is not an expensive school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is odd that Oberlin is discussed much more than the other schools mentioned. There was, however, a lengthy thread about Haverford.

The title of the thread is "Oberlin" and the original post asks about a school called Oberlin.

I was responding to the student’s post asking why Oberlin gets singled out for being liberal leaning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It is odd that Oberlin is discussed much more than the other schools mentioned. There was, however, a lengthy thread about Haverford.

The title of the thread is "Oberlin" and the original post asks about a school called Oberlin.

I was responding to the student’s post asking why Oberlin gets singled out for being liberal leaning.

Obie here. Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. I did read the longer thread that you mentioned about Haverford and Bryn Mawr since I have friends at both and have heard that many parents are not happy with the way the school administration handled the situation. I was surprised that larger national publications and new sources did not pick up on the story - I believe that in addition to regional conservative websites, the NY Times and the Atlantic picked up on "cultural appropriation" in Oberlin's cafeteria. At the same time, Smith momentarily became the center of attention of the incident of a black student eating in the off-limits section of the cafeteria and campus police getting called and a bunch of working class campus employees being called out on social media and threatened.

But it's good to bring up that the original post asks for specifics about student life and culture at Oberlin, so let's try to stick to that instead of going on tangents about diversity of opinion that could be attributed to many other universities. 😊 Happy to answer other questions pertaining to student life and academics, although I admittedly have limited experience due to the pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These cow-patch schools are not worth the dollars they are demanding. However, it assuages egos for FOMO parents whose DC can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges.

This! Exactly!

So what are kids who "can't snare admits to higher-ranked colleges" supposed to do? Stay home? Fortunately Obama didn't throw in the towel when he was admitted to "cow-patch" Occidental.

And then there are the high-performing kids who can't pay for top ten schools but don't want the large state flagship either. Oberlin and its peers are heavily populated with those students.

And kids who didn't get into better ranked slacs?

Did you not understand the point?

What is the point? That Oberlin is not an expensive school?

The point is that there are families with high-performing kids that neither qualify for need-based aid, nor can pay for elite schools. For those families, it doesn’t matter whether their kids can get in or not, they can’t go. There are a lot of students from such families the places like Oberlin, because they give merit aid to high performers.

Why is this so difficult to understand?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry, this is not a political discussion thread.

Umm, the poster who went off on the supposed lack of political diversity @ LACs injected politics into this thread.

No,. The poster commented on the lack of political diversity and the respondent introduced politics by demanding a defense of Republican political "crimes." The lack of political diversity was never disputed and in fact emphasized by the respondent's utter incapability to stick to the issue, but rather her desire to make political points.

interesting take. read like the poster didn't want to engage in any convo about lack of political diversity unless it applied to lacs, especially perceived liberal ones. that seems like both a narrow and convenient argument, enabling the poster to sidestep any discussion regarding the lack of political diversity in other institutions, which can also have deleterious affects on the body politic.

[Anonymous]

Nonsense. This is a college forum..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Sorry, this is not a political discussion thread.

Umm, the poster who went off on the supposed lack of political diversity @ LACs injected politics into this thread.

No,. The poster commented on the lack of political diversity and the respondent introduced politics by demanding a defense of Republican political "crimes." The lack of political diversity was never disputed and in fact emphasized by the respondent's utter incapability to stick to the issue, but rather her desire to make political points.

interesting take. read like the poster didn't want to engage in any convo about lack of political diversity unless it applied to lacs, especially perceived liberal ones. that seems like both a narrow and convenient argument, enabling the poster to sidestep any discussion regarding the lack of political diversity in other institutions, which can also have deleterious affects on the body politic.

As the actual author of the posts, let me respond. I think the lack of political diversity amongst both the faculty and student body is a general problem for all academic institutions, but it is particularly a problem at LACs because of their focus on a traditional liberal education emphasizing free inquiry amongst a variety of competing ideas and perspectives. This is obviously less important if you a going to a large university to study STEM. In my view, a lack of diversity will spell the end of LACs, particularly if it is accompanied by an attempt to shout down unpopular views.
As I noted before, I went to a SLAC about 40 years ago. At that time, Oberlin was one of the top 3 LACs in the Midwest. It has been slipping in the ratings since and my impression is that it is due now being viewed on the crazy liberal side of LACs. I have no doubt that actual academics at Oberlin remain first rate. It is likely that my alma mater (Carleton) is just as non-diverse as Oberlin, but its administration at least provides more lip service to valuing diversity of thought. It is my impression that the administration at Oberlin has not been effective in demonstrating a commitment to viewpoint diversity and has at times weighed in on the wrong side.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s probably still easily in the top 5 of Midwest liberal arts colleges. After Grinnell and Carleton but around the same as Macalaster and maybe Kenyon.