Oberlin College Visit Report by quaere

Visit Activities:

Admissions Interview: Yes - My interviewer was a fifth-year double degree student who was able to answer a lot of my questions. The interview was pretty laid-back and we really clicked - we ended up talking for 45 minutes.

Information Session: Yes - Led by an alum who worked in the admissions office. Wasn't too helpful - not a lot of structure and some important things were glossed over.

Campus Tour: Yes - Tour guide was great! Very informative, with a great sense of humor, and really nice - she met up with me afterward to introduce me to friends who are pursuing my potential major.

Classroom Visit: Yes - Class A had a very structured discussion before watching a movie; Class B was canceled last-minute. A little disappointed that I didn't get to see a "real" class.

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Campus:

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I'm shy, so it was nice that people went out of their way to talk to me :) Everyone was really nice and seemed thrilled to meet a prospie.

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School is relatively small but the campus is spacious - buildings are spread out with lots of green grassy space. OK to navigate - divided into blocks.

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Oberlin prioritizes. Academic buildings are in great shape (see, e.g., the new science center - wow) while dorms, student center, etc. are not brand-new, but livable.

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In the freshman dorm I stayed in: Rooms are a decent size - mostly doubles - bathrooms are a little grungy. Definitely lived-in, but still comfortable.

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Never felt unsafe. Campus is well-lit at night and there's a group of students that you can call for rides if you don't feel safe.

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Off-Campus:

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Quick access to downtown - small town, but there are lots of stores & restaurants & you could probably find what you needed. Seemed student- and bike-friendly.

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Start at the center of campus, walk 5 minutes and you're downtown, walk 15 minutes and you're out of town...

Campus Visit Notes for Oberlin College

Visit Description:

Got there early in the morning, went to an 8:30 class (200-level seminar on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, about 18 students.) People showed up on time and they had their work done (reading and taking notes on two articles). People didn't get [i]really[/i] involved - probably a combination of very structured discussion format and simply being tired - but they seemed interested and attentive. There were about 15 minutes left over after the discussion, so the professor showed a quick segment from a documentary that they'd been watching.

The tour was really nice. Oberlin has pretty extraordinary academic facilities for a school its size. The library has over 2 million volumes, plus some funky authentic decor picked out by students in the 70s (womb chairs, ridiculously bright colors, etc.) - looked like a really fun place to study. There are lots of high-quiet areas and special "scholar studies" - offices for seniors working on honors theses. They boast the third best college art museum in the country, after Harvard and Yale. One thing to note is their art rental program, which allows students to rent paintings from the collection and hang them in their dorm rooms for $5 a month. (Tour guide: "No one will insure our collection because of it, but in more than 3 decades of renting out Picassos, we've never had an accident.") Other highlights included the brand new science center - we got an insider tour from a chem professor, and the facilities are top-notch - and the Lewis Environmental Sciences Center, which is a completely green & sustainably constructed building that actually exports energy to other buildings on campus.

There's a wide variety of different architectural styles on campus. I really liked the pleasantly-mismatched look. It's not dignified; it feels very comfortable, like a place where people live and work and have all kinds of fun. I don't know if there's a better way of describing it - I think if you visit it'll strike you.

Info session was a little lackluster, but the guy who led it did bring up a few programs that are unique to Oberlin. Oberlin has a Winter Term: students are given the month of January to take unconventional classes, travel, participate in internships, or do independent study & research. During the semester, students, faculty, and townspeople can take or teach classes on any subject (from chess to food politics to Buffy the Vampire Slayer) through the Experimental College. Oberlin also has a system of housing & dining co-ops, where students as a group take on the responsibility for planning and preparing meals or living as a community.

I spent the night in an all-freshman dorm, which wasn't as crazy as I expected it to be. Students were really nice - they seemed very excited to have two prospies on their floor and they all flooded the dorm host's room to have a long conversation with us. The RA organized a hall dinner that night, so it was nice to see the sense of community on the hall and how much people seemed to care about each other.

That evening I got to witness two of the most oft-mentioned things about Oberlin life - music, and politics. There were 10+ different performances the evening I was there (weeknight), all of them free. My co-prospie and I went to the Cat in the Cream (Oberlin's coffeehouse) and heard some amazing small jazz ensembles perform (while eating equally amazing cookies). It was also the evening of the first Democratic presidential candidates' debate, so when we went back to the dorm we found probably a third of the dorm crowded around the TV watching the debate and maintaining a lively dialogue about the candidates. At one point a Conservatory student came down the stairs and, without any fanfare, sat down at the piano at the other end of the room and started playing. Immediately a few other students walked over to start improvising with him. It was pretty amazing to encounter that level of talent on a random evening in a dorm lounge.

About Oberlin students: there seemed to be a wide variety of people on campus - I saw classic hippies, urban hipsters, geeks, some "normal" people, and even athletes. As my interviewer commented, the thing that brings Obies together is that it's a "school of fanboys" - everyone, regardless of their character, has strong passions and cares very intensely about the things they do and the world around them. People seemed to love their peers. The only complaint I heard was that the political climate is somewhat monochromatic and at times disrespectful - however, I heard that from so many different people that I think the level of political extremism on campus is overestimated.

Dining/Restaurant Recommendations or Comments:

While you're in town you absolutely have to get a whole wheat donut from Gibson's. They're extraordinary.