People Considering going to Oberlin & Reed College

MaryKTX
Sun, 20 Apr 2014 03:31:46 +0000

I have to second the comment about visiting to get a sense of what is the best fit for you. I think the social atmospheres of Reed and Oberlin seem different. One thing I was somewhat reluctant to say before is that there was a lot of drug use when I was at Reed, a pretty lively drug culture. I was a liberal, progressive, young faculty member in those years and it really scared me though I am no prude. I will leave it to current Oberlin students to comment on substance use there but it does not seem to be as big of a part of the student culture from what I can see so far. Over the years, Reed has really struggled with retention and graduation rates. I get the sense that both Reed and Oberlin attract the types of students who like to experiment and create themselves, which may translate to less than linear paths through college. i would guess that Oberlin’s freshman to sophomore year retention rate is much higher than Reed’s. Students at Oberlin seem way happier, but admittedly, I do not have the longterm, up-close view I had at Reed.