Questions for current/past Grinnellians

mkshort
Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:43:42 +0000

Hi, I have 3 main questions about Grinnell. I’ve been interested in it for a while, and it was the first college I “officially” visited. Assuming I get accepted (and I know that may be a big assumption), here are my two questions:

1) How generous is Grinnell with financial aid? I know they have a massive endowment, how much does that translate into scholarships and such? I don’t mean to sound money obsessed or anything but, well, its kind of an expensive school.

2) The culture of the campus concerns me, just a tiny little bit. I’m a fairly laid back student, and from what I’ve read the students at Grinnell are also fairly laid back, which is good. I’m also moderately liberal, but I don’t want to have liberal principles drilled into me by everyone around me; I love hearing opposing arguments and will actually go out of my way to play the devil’s advocate if no one else around will provide a quality debate. That’s something I love doing. Would I be ostracised for expressing slight interest in conservative viewpoints or daring to agree with conservatives from time to time?

3) What do students do on weekends, or in their downtime? Or is there even a significant amount of downtime? I’ve taken the hardest classes at my high school, so I’m no stranger to hard work, but I don’t want to devote my entire life to writing papers. I’m fine with working my posterior off as long as I get some “me time” to relax afterwards.

Thanks in advance to anyone that responds.