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Grinnell College

How this student rated the school
Educational QualityB+ Faculty AccessibilityB-
Useful SchoolworkA- Excess CompetitionB
Academic SuccessA Creativity/ InnovationA-
Individual ValueA+ University Resource UseA+
Campus Aesthetics/ BeautyA+ FriendlinessB+
Campus MaintenanceA+ Social LifeC-
Surrounding CityD- Extra CurricularsB
SafetyA+
Describes the student body as:
Friendly, Approachable

Describes the faculty as:
Friendly, Helpful

Male
SAT1580
Not so bright
Lowest Rating
Surrounding City
D-
Highest Rating
Individual Value
A+
He cares more about Faculty Accessibility than the average student.
Date: Oct 18 2004
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
Grinnell is rich. And this fact matters. With an endowment well over a billion dollars, it's marginally the richest LAC as of this writing, with Williams College and Wellesley College within striking range. Splitting the endowment on a per capita basis, Grinnell is competitive with many elite universities (tangentially, I know for a fact that it kicks Univ. of Penn's ass, per capita-wise). It didn't always used to be this way from what I heard from a tutorial professor. The building binge the college is on confirms this: Two new buildings are being erected—a new athletics center and a student center; this on the heels of the East campus dorms and the Bucksbaum art center, and the renovation of the Noyce science building. The endowment has the immediate, tangible implication of superior financial aid. Grinnell can't compete on prestige with the student population it hopes to attract so the college has a generous aid policy. It seems a lion's share of the merit aid is awarded to desirable applicants, usually from the middle and upper-middle class. A long-term, but speculative implication is that Grinnell's academic reputation will grow in line with its endowment. Endowment strongly correlates with reputation, and this makes sense because how else can a college attract top students and top professors, if it wasn't for the almighty dollar?

I myself can't comment, but the consensus here is that socially, the school is dead on most weekdays, with Wednesdays and the weekends being the big party days. Being a small LAC in the middle of cornfields, people know each other, or at least are familiar with how most of the student body looks. There seems to be a higher proportion of unconventional types. The political atmosphere is liberal—too liberal, I think; just look at the existence of the "Killer Coke" campaign, and norms that call for constant self-censoring (such as avoiding the use of the word “gay” in a negative context). I've even heard anyone wearing Gap clothes might be harrassed or looked in a negative light by some of the radicals because the company manufactures its clothes in sweatshops. Don't be scared into thinking Grinnell is a homogenous nightmare - I'm living proof of a perverse, contrarian element that likes to chug Coke, shop at Wal-mart and praise capitalism (and I'm a poor minority).

As for the quality of education, none of the professors I've had so far (a statistically insignificant four) are downright incompetent. The worst is guilty of being uninspiring, and the best is like my favorite high school teacher, but with a PhD. There's some masturbatory praise that Grinnell is full of brilliant people, but for the most part, people here are above-average, nothing too intimidating.

A sum of minor details makes me so pleased with Grinnell. I like the wide open green spaces, the numerous trees that line the walkways, and the chittering squirrels that inhabit them. I like the Harris cinema center, a truly commercial quality theater, but I like some of the movies it shows considerably less. But most of all, I like that one computer on Phynd (the campus's LAN indexing service of choice) with tons of porn on it.

Yeah, Grinnell is nice.

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