College Stuff! (Not for Earthling, Thank God)

[thefourthvine]

The redoubtable Cousin Z, my oldest nephew, is -- oh god oh god -- going to college next fall. He applied to many schools and got into most of them, and now, through assiduous research, careful internal debate, and, very likely, a color-coded spreadsheet with many tabs, he's narrowed down his options to Reed and Whitman. And now he's trying to make that final choice.

Z had very good experiences visiting both schools, including talking with a Whitman admissions officer who described the school in Harry Potter house terms. He also went to an accepted-students reception for Reed where he went to hide in the kitchen because people, and then so many other guests (and also the host) had the same idea that it ended up being a reception-within-the-reception for people who hate receptions, all of them hiding in the kitchen and talking about how much they wished they weren't there.

Z is a very introverted person who is interested in applied math (his intended major), Doctor Who, social justice, Harry Potter, politics, Game of Thrones, and economics. His hobbies are reading fic, playing and writing music for his cello, and spending many hours at Starbucks with his study groups. (Also making color-coded spreadsheets.) He likes both Reed and Whitman because they're smaller schools where he felt comfortable on the campus, in large part because the students seemed like geeky introverts and giant weirdos, so pretty much his people.

It seems like either school could be a happy place for him. But this is Z, so he is in hardcore information-gathering mode. He could use more data. (Z could always use more data.) He needs to know the differences between the two! Find a way to make a choice! My question for you is: do you know anything about Reed or Whitman? Do you have any experiences to relate or any data Z can gather? It would help.

Thank you!

Comments

[minxy]

Excellent comments, all! I would add: Reed as a college is happy being a Northwest, Portland campus. Whitman, like the Claremont Colleges and others, is unfortunately trying to achieve a New England look with the campus. This has bothered me more in recent decades than when I was a student, but if he's at all interested in sustainability or environmental concerns, that might chafe after four years.

Other addition: Reed's internships and connections are more likely to be in the city or maybe the next city over, which can be nice if you are not a super brave soul willing to move to a new place on your own. Whitman's connections are going to minimally be in a different town because Walla Walla is small, so that will take wider connections or greater bravery to implement. Now, that's not a deal breaker--if you have connections in the area it's nice to stay with family for a summer. I was in a small town school across the country and managed to find an internship in my hometown, which was amazing! It's just something to consider.

Last addition: Most college campuses have decent food and no one will starve. Portland has great food, though, and great music, which Walla Walla still lags on somewhat (the winery fame is good, but leading to more bed and breakfast or higher end restaurants than pizza-by-the-slice) but if that's not a concern, no big. You can always make mac and cheese in your dorm kitchen. When my best friend was there, though, finding a restaurant to take your date always needed a car to get to tri-cities.

My cred: local, academic who has worked with grads, known friends who attended, or interviewed at said schools. I chose a small town for college, and Portland for grad school.

[abyssinia]

*laughs*
I loved, loved my time at Mudd, but I spent 4 years wondering why the hell Claremont, which barely got enough rain to not be classified a desert, was so desperate to look like Massachusetts. Especially since the architecture on the campuses was more SoCal than New England. While I was there, the campuses were slowly getting better at switching to local landscaping.

[I don't have much to add on the Reed vs. Whitman debate - I know I got scared away from Reed on my campus visit due to the high drug use. I highly recommend trying to talk with current students in Z's presumed major and see how happy they are - and what sort of research/internship opportunities they have]

[minxy]

I think you told me about the green lawn mandate in the town, even? Where a faculty's native california landscaping was fined, or something?

[abyssinia]

Yep! Claremont had (might still has) a city policy that a certain percentage of your yard has to be green (not necessarily grass). We had a new professor who spent significant effort doing some beautiful zeroscaping of her yard, then get fined because of it. Dumb.

[sanguinity]

Can I ask more about what your environmental concerns are about the "New England" look, as you put it? Is that based on specific knowledge of Reed's practices, or is it more general? Last I heard, the lawns are watered via the on-campus springs that feed the Canyon -- not much of a diversion, watershed-wise -- and they have put a ton of work into rehabbing the Canyon in the two decades since I attended. The outdoor swimming pool has been ripped out and the creek in the lower canyon thoroughly rehabbed -- to the point that salmon are spawning there again, even! -- and I hardly ever see an invasive or non-native species in the Canyon anymore.

[minxy]

Fair question! When I was there, it was for an interview, so when I was asking about the stream running through campus in that high savannah area, and about all the trees that didn't exist nearby (grassland), it became a topic of conversation that trees have to be pretty carefully cultivated for a while, because the water table is pretty far underground, and something (er... rats, I don't remember the details here) controversial about the engineering of the stream to protect the town and flood something else instead. Sorry about the ambiguity on that last, it was five years ago... And half of my information comes from my best friend in high school who graduated about when you did, it sounds like, and was frustrated by the situation. My information may be out of date, on average.

I will say that I loved living in Eastern Washington while I was there, though! Reed I was impressed by because Portland, while very green in the rainy season while students are there, is very dry in the summer. If campuses let their lawns go a little gold, it impresses me, because who cares if students aren't even there in force? I otherwise I have no inside info besides the appearance of the campus on drive through, and that was also some time ago (10 years or so.)