Willamette University

Date: Feb 23 2005
Major: Undecided (This Major's Salary over time)
Willamette gives amazing scholarships to applicants who are strong academically or just happen to be good at taking standardized tests. I got a $15,000/year scholarship just for being a National Merit Scholar.

That's why I came here, and probably why most the smart or ambitious people who go here came here. I mean, I'll admit I wouldn't have chosen Willamette over, say, Reed, if I didn't get the big money. But having that scholarship made it very tempting to go to a pretty nice liberal arts college without a prohibitive cost… at the time, it seemed like a no-brainer to me.

The social atmosphere at Willamette is hard to describe. There are a lot of students here who could be viewed as "preppy." This can be a turnoff for some but many of these "preps" turn out to be cool people in spite of themselves. There are also a lot of weird, quirky intellectual types like me who find a large, embracing community of similar-minded people and will make good friends very quickly… so I'm content. From my experience, the Greek system does not dominate campus life at all; it's more of a separate entity but with some overlap.

A lot of the older students had problems with strict enforcement of state alcohol/drug laws in past years. However, this year a new policy was introduced which pretty much limits enforcement to when actual trouble is being caused, creating a much more trusting and non-oppressive social environment, which should be expected of a good liberal-arts college. I assume this policy will stay… it better.