(Macalester) Despite how Macalester sells itself as an international, multicultural,

How this student rated the school

Educational Quality	B	Faculty Accessibility	C
Useful Schoolwork	C	Excess Competition	C+
Academic Success	B+	Creativity/ Innovation	C
Individual Value	C	University Resource Use	D+
Campus Aesthetics/ Beauty	C-	Friendliness	A-
Campus Maintenance	C-	Social Life	C+
Surrounding City	D	Extra Curriculars	C
Safety	C-

Describes the student body as: Arrogant, Snooty Describes the faculty as: Friendly, Arrogant, Condescending, Unhelpful

Female

ACT:30

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Lowest Rating Surrounding City	D

Highest Rating Friendliness	A-

She cares more about Surrounding City than the average student.

Date: Jan 06 2010
Major: History/Histories (art history/etc.) (This Major's Salary over time)
Despite how Macalester sells itself as an international, multicultural, diverse school, the majority of students are white, wealthy, suburban girls from the Midwest. There are a lot of international students because Macalester gives them exceptional financial aid in order to keep up its quota. African Americans and Hispanics are basically non-existent.

Most people come from wealthy families and spend their summers and school breaks in foreign countries, visiting friends around the world, and taking exotic vacations with their families. Living at home and having a job during the summer is unheard of. Macalester students tend to be snobby, arrogant, and "open minded" about everything except something they don't agree with. Everyone is expected to change the world after they graduate, and anyone with "lower" aspirations is looked down upon.

Academics is very important to Macalester students. If you are an easygoing, carefree person whose life is about more than getting an A grade, Macalester is not for you. If a Macalester student gets a B on a test or a paper, they feel as if their life is ruined. The incredibly stressful environment around midterms and finals is depressing and annoying.

St. Paul is a small city with not much to do. Macalester is eager to sell you on the "vibrant Twin Cities area", but the more "vibrant" parts of the Twin Cities are located in Minneapolis, a 90 minute bus ride away. Public transportation is slow and expensive. Arctic tundra-esque weather also discourages people from going out.

The price for attending Macalester is not worth it. Most of my professors in my 2 years have been less than exceptional. They are generally arrogant and self-absorbed and much more concerned with their own research and writing than doing any actual teaching.

You are also charged a $200 activity fee so you may attend campus sporting events. Any fine arts activity, such as concerts, musicals, or plays, cost an entrance fee, however.

Despite its high tuition and room and board cost, Macalester also tries to get a dollar from you any way they can, charging money for laundry and other administrative fees. Students are forced to live on campus their first 2 years, and the dorms are not very nice. The single rooms are smaller than the size of a jail cell, so Macalester pays a fee to the government every year, because legally rooms shouldn't be that small. Macalester students are also forced to buy a meal plan for their first semester, which is ridiculously expensive. If you want to pay $8 for a bowl of cereal every morning, Macalester is the school for you.

The Macalester bookstore is also a giant ripoff. Paperbacks for literature classes are around $10-12 (over $100 for the class total, on average) and textbooks range from $150-$200. The school frequently changes textbooks and upgrades to new editions so it rarely buys back the textbooks. If they do, you usually get about 10% of what you initially paid for it. Expect to spend over $500 on books every semester, and get about $50 (if that) back from the bookstore.

Macalester is a complete ripoff and a waste of time and money. The classes are mostly discussion based because the professors are lazy and more focused on their own research, which results in a lot of people who like to hear themselves speak drone on and on. Since no material is actually taught, it is hard to participate in discussions because there is no background information to draw upon. There is enormous pressure to be brilliant, get A's on everything, and speak very eloquently all of the time.

I hate Macalester and have made plans to leave.

Responses

I agree with the first couple of paragraphs. There is a definite presence at Mac of rich airheads who fantasize about flying to exotic countries and dancing on the beach with starving kids. Regarding fees, I don't find Mac at all out of the ordinary (laundry, activity fees, textbooks). Theater and music productions rarely charge a fee, and the few times they do are usually warranted.

Regarding academics, I would have no problem with the environment you described. Some professors (usually the aging ones) are less available or personable, but on the whole I developed some great relationships and prepared myself well for graduate study. I expect to be challenged.

I wish you luck in finding a school that's right for you.

The claim that

the majority of students are white, wealthy, suburban girls from the Midwest

is an overstatement. The average student is probably from the mid-to-upper class but that doesn't mean you won't find people from a range of financial backgrounds (like me for example, from a lower-middle class, single-parent home). And I actually did spend my summer at home working full-time (at the college actually) and most of my friends did the same. As far as racial diversity goes, Macalester can boast a large population of international students, though it is true that enrollment of domestic African American and especially Hispanic students is low. There are a few hotspots from which Macalester draws its student body from the US. Those places include Boston; San Francisco and the bay area; Portland, Oregon; Chicago. I have friends from each of these places and I've also befriended people from Ghana, Georgia (the country, not the state, as he is often so quick to remind us), Sweden, Jamaica, and Israel.

I also haven't really picked up on a lot of snobbishness or arrogance- of course there are occasional instances of a pretentious person here and there, but I don't think it's a defining characteristic of the student body at all. People who come here get good grades because they're more because they're intelligent rather than workaholics. Finals and midterms can be stressful no matter what institution you attend but Mac tries to lighten things up with the Midnight Breakfast, where the faculty get all gussied up in hairnets to serve food at the Campus Center to students. The atmosphere during this event is very party-like, with music and and students dancing on booths. Also toward the end of spring it's not entirely atypical for a DJ table to materialize in Marvin Plaza while students hang out on the lawn or table for health care reform.

As far as the location goes- it's can boast a nice setup. It's not as integral to the cities as, say, the U of M campus or Augsburg. But the Mac-Groveland area is a nice neighborhood and Grand is full of neat little niche-like places including Shish, the Italian Pie Shoppe, the Tea Garden, Grand Ole Creamery, the first ever Dunn Bros Coffee Shop, and Breadsmith- needless to say you'll never want for good food on this street.

Hotspots in the cities such as funky Dinkytown, indie Uptown and Downtown Minneapolis are a good 30 min- hour commute via public transportation. But they make for good weekend excursions with your friends- and First Ave has amazing concerts and is an easy light rail commute. The cities are vibrant as long as you take advantage of them. And the system isn't so expensive at all, particularly compared with bigger cities like Chicago, New York or SF. What's more, Mac will subsidize bus passes, cutting the price in half.

The price tag for Mac is exorbitant, that's true. But they do talk a big game about meeting students' financial needs and with a huge endowment, more often than not they live up to that promise.

As far as professors go, I've had various experiences. I had a Philosophy professor that was excellent- very laid back and inviting, a Spanish professor that was duller than Wonderbread, a young Poli Sci prof that was pretty intense and could be harsh but also very passionate about her subject. And the English department can boast a collection of really talented published and award-winning authors. My general rule of thumb is that you try to stick with the tenured faculty as much as possible- sometimes the visiting professors can be duds.

The dorms here aren't luxury accommodations, that's for sure. But I survived my freshman year in Dupre (which is universally acknowledged as the WORST of Mac's residence halls and is also home to the tiny singles that are smaller than standard prions cells- residents of these unfortunate cubicles are called the

Duprisoners of Dupre

). But Dupre's really not that bad- the rooms are actually pretty spacious even if they come sans sink- a luxury of all of the other halls. My neighbors became my best friends and there was a real sense of community in that dilapidated dorm. And besides, it's not all bad. There is Wallace (which is universally acknowledged as the BEST dorm). Whereas Dupre might be the equivalent of Macalester's Bronx, Wallace is pretty much the Beverly Hills of the campus with hardwood floors, bay windows, varied floorplans, and nice common rooms. There's always the chance that you can luck your way into that hall too.

Food here is pretty decent, though the meal plan is expensive. BonAppetit is Mac's caterer and they're very sensitive to vegetarian, vegan and allergy issues. They make a show about buying locally- although how much of that is propaganda remains to be seen. There's a Grill that they have in addition to the cafeteria that is open most of the time where you can get awfully delicious greasy food in case you've missed a meal, smoothies, banana bread, sometimes even sushi.

The bookstore is corrupt. But most are. This can be avoided by being book-savvy. Take advantage of Amazon, ebay, half-price books, etc. Inherit textbooks from your friends, try and sell them back to the store, but if they don't take them sell them online. But there's pretty much no getting around the fact that books for college are expensive.

I love Macalester. It's my home and I'm really happy with my choice.

I would definitely have to disagree with the majority of information stated in this evaluation of Macalester. I am both a student of color and I come from a middle to lower class family, and I get excellent financial aid. Although there are a good number of people at Macalester that pay the full sticker price (which is about $50,000), a great deal of Macalester students are receiving some form of need-based financial aid, whether it be grants, loans, or work-study. There is a wide variety of people from diverse backgrounds at Macalester, and I do not believe that all international students came because of financial aid or the school's "quota's." Plenty of my friends, who hail from Sweden, the Czech Republic, China, etc., came to Macalester because of its stellar Economics and International Studies programs, not because Mac offered them a big scholarship. The $200 activities fee does not strictly go to athletic events, either. The activities fee goes to the Student Government, who then distributes the money to the various clubs and groups around campus, who then use the money to offer activities around campus. Dance in the Kagin Ballroom, concerts, speakers, and dinners are all funded through this activity fee, and most people do not even realize it. I do admit that the bookstore can be pricey, but if you are responsible and timely, you can order books for much cheaper new from Amazon and then sell them back to the bookstore for a fair price. As far as the living situation goes, the dorms at Mac get better as you get older. Dupre is widely considered the "worst" dorm at Mac, and it isn't even that terrible. I lived in Dupre for my first year, and actually found that it was a great community in which to live, and I made a lot of friends within the building. There is also plenty to do in Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Given, Minneapolis is a bit of a trek from campus, but it is nowhere near a 90 minute bus ride. The U of M- Minneapolis campus is only about 30-40 minutes from campus by bus, and there is a ton to do in that area. In addition, you can take the bus to the lightrail and go to Uptown Mpls easily. If you are lazy, then sure, getting out to the Cities can be tough, but I know a ton of people who make weekly trips into Minneapolis with no trouble or complaints at all. Although it is annoying that as a freshman you are required to purchase a meal plan, it is not the end of the world. Cafe Mac provides a wide variety of foods for vegetarians, vegans, and people who are allergic to gluten. The food in Cafe Mac is about as good as it gets for college students; I have friends attending colleges where mac and cheese and burgers are the norm in their college cafeteria. At Cafe Mac, they serve us curries, brick oven pizzas, Asian cuisines, and then the normal staples.

I am beyond happy with my choice of Macalester. I am entering my junior year at Macalester and the prospect of having to leave one day saddens me, because Macalester has been such a rewarding and enriching experience.

I agree 140% with EVERYTHING this student says about Macalester. The school is garbage and a total rip-off.

Leaving Macalester to attend a state school after my second year was the BEST DECISION that I have made in my life. Your education is what YOU choose to make it, NOT how much you pay for it! And trust me, you will be paying for your education for 15 - 20 years after graduation due to the crappy financial aid packages.

Screw Macalester!

St. Paul is not at all a small city and Minneapolis is by no means a 90 minute bus ride from Macalester. If you can't find something to do in the twin cities you must have tried really hard to not have anything to do. I don't know much about Macalester other than the people I work with who go there absolutely love it, but I do know a lot about the twin cities.

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