Oberlin College Visit Report by musicmomic

Visit Activities:

Information Session: Yes

Campus Tour: Yes

Classroom Visit: Yes

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Campus:

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An odd mix of architecture across campus. Broken eggs on one sidewalk. Dozens of cigarette butts outside of entrances of several buildings.

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Hard to judge but were told on tour that chapel was locked because of concerns about keeping the organ safe.

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Off-Campus:

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Very, very small town with few restaurants or shops.

Campus Visit Notes for Oberlin College

Visit Description:

Visit March 2005
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My daughter and I returned last week from a visit to Oberlin. She is a junior and interested in vocal performance and music education. She is also interested in Lawrence. We will visit there next month. I will not speak for her but will simply provide my observations and comparisons based on my review of written material and our visit to Oberlin. The conservatory at Oberlin is independent of the college. I did not detect any specific tension but the conservatory does not emphasize academics outside of music. If you are not a double degree student, only 1/5 of the required coursework is taken outside of music and in vocal performance, there are no specific requirements to provide any educational balance across those few liberal arts courses. Some students would do fine choosing a breadth of topics on their own; others probably less well. I found the conservatory faculty to be very knowledgeable, pleasant, and generous with their time and my daughter was able to have a lesson with one of the faculty members. The physical facilites of the conservatory seemed good and were pleasant. By contrast, the arts/science college campus at Oberlin was not appealing to me. The mix of architecture was mediocre, there were dozens of cigarette butts on sidewalks near building entrances, there were raw eggs cracked on one sidewalk, the large display case at the corner of the main square was empty (I expected a campus map/directory/event schedule) and the glass was covered with residue from numerous fliers that had been posted there in the past and some torn fliers were hanging from the glass. The conservatory was "abuzz" with activity but very few people (students or otherwise) were visible at any point during our visit as we walked around the main campus. Two of the students we did see on campus were walking barefoot (it was 35 degrees). In sum, I felt confident that the Oberlin conservatory would be a great place to study music but I was less impressed with the overall atmosphere of the general campus.