Reed College

Reed was an excllent school with very good programs. The low student to faculty ratio was very important to gaining a complete understanding of the coursework. The student body is quite liberal and conservative students might not feel comfoterable there.

4th Year Female -- Class 1997

Education Quality: A+, Social Life: B-

Reed is a fantastic institution. I found the students to be very committed to learning and intellectual development. There was a sense that anything could be understood with the right attention. When I left Reed with a physics degree and went on an engineering graduate program, I felt that the solid grounding in the acadamic fundamentals of math and physics put me ahead of other students who had more narrowly focused engineering undergraduate degrees.

The social life was quite liberal in the late 70s and early 80s when I was there. It may be unfamiliar to some but in retrospect, I am so glad I did not go to a preppy East Coast college.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

I cannot imagine having gone to another school besides Reed and for me it was definitely the right choice. I made some amazing friends, had incredible experiences and loved being in Portland. With that said, it was a trial by fire in many ways. It took me six years to finish Reed due to changing majors three times (Biology to English to Chinese) and taking a year off due to depression and confusion. I whole heartedly support the policy of only showing grades upon request but when you push yourself very hard and are a bit of a perfectionist as many Reedies are it can lead to thinking that you are doing worse than you really are. When I left Reed for my year off I was convinced that I was on the verge of failing out. In fact my GPA was over 3.3, pretty stellar for Reed. Of course I only found out when I was considering leaving Reed and transfering and requested my transcript. In any case, you have to have a lot of balls to survive in Reed's atmosphere. Although it's not traditionally "competitive" there is an incredible peer pressure to live the life of the mind and push yourself to your limits. I 'closed' the library (stayed until 2am) every night my sophomore year and I got there right after classes ended and took an hour break for dinner. Pulling all nighters was routine around finals. Oddly it's the all nighters that I really miss. There's something about having a cigarette and coffee at 6am outside the library with the couple of other Reedies who have stayed up all night working with you, frazzled, bleary, ranting, completely obsessed....I really miss it. Anyway, I do agree that Reed doesn't prepare you for much besides grad school or lab tech work, but that's not really the point. After Reed you can honestly take on anything. My partner is also a Reedie and we're currently settling into England where he's going to grad school. Neither of us would trade our years at Reed for anything.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000