Reed College

Reed didn't live up to its promises for me. My humanities classes were largely unchallenging and unrigorous and included minimal focus on anything like methods. It's a fact that the science majors work a lot harder than the humanities majors. If you're in all humanities classes, it's possible to take an entire week or two at a time and not do any work at all, and as long as you show up and say one or two things each class you can avoid having your grade suffer whatsoever. Then when you have to write an essay just write it about one of the things you did read. Science is different; it actually requires you to master new material every week without which you can not understand subsequent material. Most students don't do all the reading for any of their classes and seminars vary widely in quality. Another thing they don't tell you is that you really, really have to be an extrovert to thrive in the conference setting. A lot of inquisitive and critically thinking people are attracted to liberal arts schools because of the conference-style setup, but they don't realize it only really works for critically thinking people who are stimulated and get their ideas from others rather than from independent reflection. For me, a more than usually neurotic introvert, going to conference is an emotional burden that leaves me exhausted on the best of days and a nervous mess on the worst, and most of the time does little to stimulate my thinking. I'm the last person to want to be force-fed pedagogy, but I honestly think I would've been better stimulated by lecture-style courses where I could go and reflect critically on the material on my own. My classes did expose me to texts that have improved me but the classes themselves have added only a small marginal benefit. I will say that writing a thesis was the best educational experience I've ever had, largely because it was completely independent and I blew off a lot of class to work on it. Come here if you're an extrovert who wouldn't pursue critical thinking and new ideas on your own. If you're an introvert who would explore challenging new ideas and multiple perspectives on every issue if left to your own devices, unless you really want to write a thesis, I'd give Reed a pass.

4th Year Male -- Class 2014

Faculty Accessibility: A+, Collaboration/Competitive: C

I'm a Reed graduate. The College is insular and depressing, although academically demanding. Take it to heart: Reed is not for everyone.

A small number of Reed graduates go into medicine, law, engineering, finance. The vast majority go into sundry careers like alternative medicine, computer programming, library science, freelance writing, and beer-making. But Reed is best suited for students who, out of high school, are confident they want to become academics.

For a century a large number of students have had the privilege of attending this expensive and elite school yet, in comparison with its peer institutions, only a minuscule percentage have attained significant prominence or even minor renown, even in academia. And Reed is not known for graduates who start businesses, invent things, go into politics, or lead organizations. Just read the Alumni Notes section of any Reed Magazine to get a flavor.

Fame is a lousy metric of educational value (there are very talented, successful and happy Reed graduates), but the paucity of major stand-outs after a 100 years does bespeak Reed's isolation and over-emphasis on intellectualism for its own sake. The place is an ivory tower. Missing is the vibrancy of real-world engagement and service to society. The Greeks and Romans have their place, but Reed makes little room for developing leadership skills, understanding and wrestling with contemporary problems, learning from prominent experts, and interacting with local and national interest groups. It also does little to prepare graduates uninterested in graduate school for decent, well-paying jobs.

For what it emphasizes - the life of the mind - Reed does well and promotes a sense of purity about it. The well-worn example is that while grades are conferred and appear on transcripts, the school does not disseminate report cards or divulge grades to students unless they ask to see them. Reed also eschews grade inflation. For example, I worked hard to receive a B in almost every class I took. But such virtuousness must be celebrated on an island isolated from the rest of humanity. And, perversely, this lofty principle competitively disadvantages its graduates. Even if Reed students are capable, ambitious, and have significant talent and superior scores on GREs, LSATs, and MCATs, computer screening algorithms and admissions officers in graduate and professional schools often simply don't know or care that Reed has more stringent grading standards than other schools.

The prioritization of scholarship over grades, fraternities, and team sports has merit, but the Reed ethos encourages students to be too extreme and self-congratulatory about this, and to have an exaggerated belief about how iconoclastic and liberal and free-thinking they are. The self-indulgent, counter-culture miasma quickly gets old. "Atheism, Communism, Free Love" is, after several decades, now stale beyond belief. Peer pressure to endorse these values and to cultivate a bohemian image also yield an irony: while Reed prides itself on being "different," it's not a place where one who disagrees with aspects of the Reed norm can feel comfortable. In fact, rampant political correctness notwithstanding, Reed is intolerant of many kinds of diversity.

A stereotype about Reed was true: there was plenty of pot, alcohol, and hard drugs. In awed tones, some spoke of "Bromo," a strong and scary, mind-altering substance that a Reed student had supposedly invented in a chemistry lab. Reed provided an accepting atmosphere to try some of this.

Finally, there have been spates of student suicides during Reed's history. Whether this is a bigger problem than at other liberal-arts colleges I don't know, but one wonders about the influence of Portland's near-constant drizzle, low skies, prolonged winter darkness, and Reed's small spaces, recreational drugs, interminable pressure to study, and number of socially awkward students.

I don't regret attending Reed yet I would have been happier and received an equally good education if I had attended a more conventional school with more sunshine and more resonance with the rest of society. There are myriad alternatives for a more balanced life, for friendship, and for the development of critical thinking skills: any of the Ivy Leagues; most of the highly-ranked US News and World Report liberal arts colleges; and even many state schools, some of which have liberal arts programs that try to capture the feel of life in a small college. Some of these observations reflect personal experience, predilections, and the nature of my adolescence. Perhaps Reed has changed. I've gone on to have a wonderful family and a fulfilling and successful career. But as much as I genuinely benefited from, I also had to work hard to overcome my Reed experience. Most telling is that I would not encourage my own children to attend Reed -- or even visit it.

4th Year Male -- Class 1998

Reed is a strange place and, in my opinion, kind of insular and depressing. I graduated from there in the late 1980s. It's not a place that produces many professionals. Academics, yes, maybe. But not a lot of people who go on and actually interact with the world and do major things like start or run businesses or invent new products or go into politics or lead organizations. It's a place that promotes rigorous thinking, but is overly self-conscious. Too many drugs as well. Not enough sunshine. I would never encourage my own child to attend Reed. I got a good education, but would have been happier and gotten an equally good education at a more conventional school. The place was kind of run down when I was there, and still is (I walked through campus a couple years ago and couldn't believe how quaint and tiny it seemed). This sounds like a negative review, but Reed IS an excellent school. It's just that if you have a choice, don't get taken in by the self-professed egg-headedness of the place. There are equally good schools that are not so isolated and dark.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000