<p>Portland weather: Summers are gorgeous (except this summer); winters are rainy and dreary. Nice sunny weather usually lasts until November, and then comes back off-and-on in March and April. The in-between months are mostly overcast and drizzly, but you have most of December and January off. Invest in a sun lamp or something.</p>
<p>The beach (which is gorgeous) is 1.5 hours away, ski mountains are 1 hour away, the Columbia Gorge is 45 minutes away. Reed organizes trips for interested students to all those places and I think even has its own little ski cabin on Mt. Hood.</p>
<p>The campus is beautiful, very traditional “Ivy tower” vibe and lots of green space, amazing nature-reserve canyon cutting across the campus.</p>
<p>The Reed “quirkiness”- hard to define. To me, students seem kinda geeky and bookish, not so indie/hipster as you are describing. But I’m sure there is a niche for everyone. Just visit and you’ll see.</p>
<p>People study in their free time, what else? Hahaha. That’s not totally true-- it seems like people work hard and party hard. There’s a tons of student-run clubs and campus activities, look into the Gray Fund. It does seem like people tend to stay fairly isolated in the Reed bubble and don’t get to experience greater Portland so much, but upperclassmen usually live off-campus so at least they have to… go to the grocery store? Of course it depends on the student how much they “get out.”</p>
<p>Visit. I can’t stress that enough-- you will probably be able to tell if it is right. Stay overnight with someone in the dorm, sit in on a class or two. Usually high schools’ spring breaks don’t match up with colleges’ spring breaks, so maybe you could go then-? But if it’s not right, don’t try to force a square peg in a round hole-- you’ll just end up miserable.</p>