What school was unexpectedly your least favorite when you visited?

moooop, I am completely unable to say those jargon-y slogan college things. If I were picking college for myself, I would pick one with no school spirit whatsoever.

@maya54 Funny, I have had students at USC for years, go to games all the time and have never heard that. I had to figure out what you were saying. Seriously. Go figure. Glad he didn’t miss the $.

Sorry to revive this controversy, but I feel like as a Reed alum I need to shed some light on the topic of the scrounge table at Reed, which aroused outrage earlier in the thread:

Students who scrounge don’t see the practice as humiliating or something they need to revolt against. In fact, scrounging has historically been the focal point of a peculiar (and yes, kinda gross) student subculture. Sometime in the 90s, if I’m not mistaken, scroungers actually started printing trading cards with their pictures and bios on them and would give their cards to the students whose food they were eating. Today’s scroungers don’t go quite that far, but they still take pride in their activities and have (or used to have until 2 years ago) a set of scrounging commandments hanging on the wall behind the scrounging table to guide them. They also have their own boombox and are thus in charge of the music in Commons, i.e. the cafeteria.

No one is forcing them to scrounge or to stand by the scrounging table; it’s just a tradition. As I said, being a scrounger is an identity of sorts, usually bound up in notions of independence from ~the system~ (because you live off campus and are sticking it to Bon Appetit by eating their food for free), having good taste in music, not being a freshman, worldly wisdom underclassmen don’t have, etc. The scroungers are like the smelly elders of Commons. Cool in their own eyes, disgusting in the eyes of visiting parents, normal to everyone else.

I missed the whole Reed ā€œscrounge tableā€ discussion. I just googled it. TBH, I’ve never even heard of Reed until now.

ā€œStupid is as stupid does.ā€ Forrest Gump L-)

Give me a scrounge table over beer pong any day.

My only issue with the scrounge table is not the social one, it’s the germ one. I’m all for sticking it to the man, whatever that form takes. Unless it gives you mono.

I keep wondering if Reed isn’t putting itself at legal risk, if not risk of failing a city health inspection of its cafeteria?

@moooop We have the same hand signal in New Jersey, where it is also known as the ā€œstate bird.ā€

Why are kids at Reed hungry enough to eat someone else’s food scraps?

Besides mono, cold sores, norovirus/fecal matter (kids don’t always wash their hands), colds, flu, lice, Hepatitis, HIV, Meningitis, MRSA, TB, etc., I don’t know how this ā€œscrounge tableā€ still exists in 2017. Dumb.

I think it was more disgust than outrage, at least from me. :slight_smile:

ā€œbecause you live off campus and are sticking it to Bon Appetit by eating their food for freeā€
But who is really sticking it to whom? I’d say the scroungers are really shafting their fellow students who participate in the meal plan (many not by choice if they have to do so while living on campus). A basic economics course would make it clear that Bon Appetit isn’t eating (no pun intended) that cost - it’s just getting passed on to the other students. Bon Appetit is going to make a profit regardless, otherwise they wouldn’t be providing the food service. They’re not a charity. And as far as institutional caterers go, they have one of the better reputations. So, traditions aside, the whole thing really isn’t too cool at all. If these ā€œsmelly eldersā€ really wanted to turn their energies into something productive, they could work hand in hand with Bon Appetit and find some ways using any leftover food not served to help those who truly are less fortunate and who face real food insecurity.

So, again, not outraged. Just consider me grossed out, not at all impressed, and find the whole thing a bit affected and childish.

If I remember correctly, Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed but crashed in the dorms for a semester or more. I wonder how he fed himself?

The population that I was familiar with at Reed in the early 80s (when I lived in Portland) was exceedingly wealthy. They were likely to be going to Vale during ski week, but perhaps wealth and scrounging are not mutually exclusive.

I thought that S should consider Reed, but he was totally turned off by the scrounging thing. :slight_smile:

I LOVE this thread and binge-read it last night. LOL! Thanks for sharing your hilarious horror stories. Very cathartic read at the end of this crazy application process. Trying to find something to add but I can’t top the scrounge table, gum wall, and yurts. Now I look forward to going thru this again in 2 yrs and might add some of these colleges to our tour list just for fun. My best tip is to never visit colleges in June when most campuses are ghost towns or construction sites. Boston College was scrubbed clean in June of people and any evidence of campus life. There were bare bulletin boards, carpets rolled up, dark echoey halls, butterflies dancing over the football field. Hard to see what life would really be like for a student.

How about the signs in the bathrooms at Smith: Shower sex with either sex is gross. Don’t do it here.

I didn’t think that was cool. My 16 year old daughter was horrified.

Any other stereotypes we can confirm?

ā€œHow about the signs in the bathrooms at Smith: Shower sex with either sex is gross. Don’t do it here.ā€

Sounds pretty practical to me. As does the health center/STD comment. It’s college. Sex happens, frequently. It happened back in the 80s as well, even in the shower. :smiley:

@GnocchiB Keeping in mind that this is a hate thread, my answer to this would be that Portland, Oregon has a different level of city health inspection than other cities. I mean, have you seen those food trucks? Free salmonella with every organic locally sourced raw food burrito. What a deal!

(I felt pretty bad writing that because Portland is one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world.)

JenJenJenJen you must have mistaken this thread for one that gave a $#!;. Both praise and guilt are frowned on here. Portland has been informed about your transgression and there's a special place reserved for you on a Burnside Ave busline. I secretly love Portland as well and if it wasn't for 300 days a year of oppressive cloud cover, I'd be living there still. Ten roach coach burritos is my self inflicted punishment.

When I went to college in the early 80s, two girls played guitars and sang a song about crabs (pubic lice) at parents weekend. Horrifying but memorable.