Anonymous wrote:I had a similar kid. She looked at schools in these groups:
1. British and Canadian schools (more transparent admissions requirements = less gaming of the system).
2. Great state flagships (a greater range of students = the cutthroat factor doesn't dominate campus culture)
3. Midwestern/non coastal mid-size and SLACS (i.e. Notre Dame, Carlton and Rice)
DD wound up going to McGill, loved every minute of it, got a world-class education AND it cost me about 1/3 of the others on her list.

Anonymous wrote:PP who mentioned going to Reed. I grew up in an affluent suburb of a major city and knew a lot of people who were intelligent, stellar students, and went on to be very successful. But many of them were not particularly intellectual or invested in school outside of getting As...they saw it as a means to achieve and move on to the next thing. They wouldn't want to discuss schoolwork outside of school, for example. Many of those people became management consultants, investment bankers, work in big law, went to med school, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. But for a certain sort of student, that pre-professional environment isn't a great fit. That's why so many people I went to college with are academics now (including myself).

Reed just draws people who don't fit in with that sort of achievement culture that I would stereotype with, say, being a McKinsey consultant. But I have a whole lot of friends from college who are doing incredible work now. Many are faculty, others have started companies, others work in journalism, others in tech. There tends to be a certain desire for autonomous, creative work among Reedies. At Reed, it is cool to care deeply about what you are learning in class and to discuss it constantly outside of class. Everyone is encouraged to dive deeply in their senior thesis. You are given grades, but they are de-emphasized (for example you will get a graded exam back, but it won't have a letter grade on it, or you will get a paper back with comments only, only to find out your grade at the end of the semester--something that would drive my students crazy where I work now). It's not for everyone, and it is largely able to operate like that due to privilege.

And some of the other aspects people associate with Reed that are more negative come with a similar non-conformism that is in both parts intellectually freeing/exploratory and privileged, like its reputation for having a bit of a drug culture. In terms of its drug culture, it's there but not everyone participates, and most who do only participate very occasionally because they are focused on their studies. I won't say it's totally overblown--it is more pervasive than some schools. But I did my postdoc in Berkeley, and I have a lot of high achieving friends who work in tech and biotech in the bay area who have similar attitudes towards drugs, even as adults. It's more that there's a certain type of personality who is curious about, say, taking acid and many of them are drawn to those sorts of environments.

All and all it was a really fantastic, intellectually shaping time for me. I am still in touch with my professors from college now. I feel like I received an excellent education there. Of course there are plenty of issues that come with the entitlement of having an environment like that catered to pretentious, weird, nerdy, intellectual 18-22 year olds. Since leaving college I have worked at public universities, and I appreciate the mission that those schools have and the role they play in their communities and the range of students that attend them.

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar kid. She looked at schools in these groups:
1. British and Canadian schools (more transparent admissions requirements = less gaming of the system).
2. Great state flagships (a greater range of students = the cutthroat factor doesn't dominate campus culture)
3. Midwestern/non coastal mid-size and SLACS (i.e. Notre Dame, Carlton and Rice)
DD wound up going to McGill, loved every minute of it, got a world-class education AND it cost me about 1/3 of the others on her list.

Anonymous wrote:PP who mentioned going to Reed. I grew up in an affluent suburb of a major city and knew a lot of people who were intelligent, stellar students, and went on to be very successful. But many of them were not particularly intellectual or invested in school outside of getting As...they saw it as a means to achieve and move on to the next thing. They wouldn't want to discuss schoolwork outside of school, for example. Many of those people became management consultants, investment bankers, work in big law, went to med school, etc. There's nothing wrong with that. But for a certain sort of student, that pre-professional environment isn't a great fit. That's why so many people I went to college with are academics now (including myself).

Reed just draws people who don't fit in with that sort of achievement culture that I would stereotype with, say, being a McKinsey consultant. But I have a whole lot of friends from college who are doing incredible work now. Many are faculty, others have started companies, others work in journalism, others in tech. There tends to be a certain desire for autonomous, creative work among Reedies. At Reed, it is cool to care deeply about what you are learning in class and to discuss it constantly outside of class. Everyone is encouraged to dive deeply in their senior thesis. You are given grades, but they are de-emphasized (for example you will get a graded exam back, but it won't have a letter grade on it, or you will get a paper back with comments only, only to find out your grade at the end of the semester--something that would drive my students crazy where I work now). It's not for everyone, and it is largely able to operate like that due to privilege.

And some of the other aspects people associate with Reed that are more negative come with a similar non-conformism that is in both parts intellectually freeing/exploratory and privileged, like its reputation for having a bit of a drug culture. In terms of its drug culture, it's there but not everyone participates, and most who do only participate very occasionally because they are focused on their studies. I won't say it's totally overblown--it is more pervasive than some schools. But I did my postdoc in Berkeley, and I have a lot of high achieving friends who work in tech and biotech in the bay area who have similar attitudes towards drugs, even as adults. It's more that there's a certain type of personality who is curious about, say, taking acid and many of them are drawn to those sorts of environments.

All and all it was a really fantastic, intellectually shaping time for me. I am still in touch with my professors from college now. I feel like I received an excellent education there. Of course there are plenty of issues that come with the entitlement of having an environment like that catered to pretentious, weird, nerdy, intellectual 18-22 year olds. Since leaving college I have worked at public universities, and I appreciate the mission that those schools have and the role they play in their communities and the range of students that attend them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think where you need to target are places that have lots of well raised, auto-didactic kids who also come from lots of wealth so they don't have be 'gunners' because they have a massive safety net that allows them to be 'chill'.

Non-preprofessional, small, lots of wealth are the keys.

Out of curiosity, which schools match this description? I think of Brown.

Vassar comes to mind. Maybe reed

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the catch.

You know how kids around here have been groomed for top schools their whole lives?
There is a culture in NJ/NJ/CT/MA where kids are groomed socially their entire lives, taught who to associate with and who not to, taught how to choose friends like they’re making business connections...not based on friendship, but based on who has access to what. They don’t care so much about academics, and aren’t that competitive about it, but it’s creepy as hell how calculating these kids are by the time they are in college.

I think I prefer the academically competitive crowd down here.

Funny, to me that is a description that fits the DC area to a perfect tee. There’s a reason everyone makes jokes about DC and its residents’ obsession with the “so what do you do?” question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here’s the catch.

You know how kids around here have been groomed for top schools their whole lives?
There is a culture in NJ/NJ/CT/MA where kids are groomed socially their entire lives, taught who to associate with and who not to, taught how to choose friends like they’re making business connections...not based on friendship, but based on who has access to what. They don’t care so much about academics, and aren’t that competitive about it, but it’s creepy as hell how calculating these kids are by the time they are in college.

I think I prefer the academically competitive crowd down here.

Funny, to me that is a description that fits the DC area to a perfect tee. There’s a reason everyone makes jokes about DC and its residents’ obsession with the “so what do you do?” question.