<p>I wanted to comment on the thread after seeing the recent activity. I have a good friend who attended but did not graduate from Reed nearly 20 years ago. I have a student currently at Reed. I also have friends in the Reed community. What I’ve heard is that in the past, Reed had a sort of institutionalized “drop 'em in the deep end and see who swims” mentality. There was a heavy courseload, a lot demanded of students, but not a lot of resources to help them with that. When students struggled with it, for whatever reason, that was seen as indicative of not “really” belonging, of not being a good fit. Basically, the school took chances in admitting some students – underachieving passionate students, students with very uneven track records – but provided no support to help those students succeed. If you failed out, or mentally could not handle it, it was about <em>you</em>, not about the school. </p>
<p>I think that’s changing. what I’ve seen, and what I’ve heard, and what my son has experienced. While there’s not the level of handholding or academic support that some schools have (even top schools – Stanford, for example), there is definitely more awareness of graduation outcomes, more concern about improving them. Most importantly, I hear and see an increased institutional sense of responsibility for the graduation rates. The administration seems much more concerned about providing the resources to help students graduate. Health services for students seems to be more aware of issues of stress, pressure, concentration, stuff like that. While I don’t think it’s going to become a 97% grad rate school, it does seem to be improving. There’s awareness of the situation. The administration no longer seems to regard low grad rates as a perverse badge of honor.</p>