Reed College

Portland, OR · founded 1908 · 1,500 students · liberal arts college · Northwest Conference (NCAA Division III)

Known for: Reed College is famous for its intensely intellectual, non-conformist culture, a mandatory first-year humanities conference, and a rigorous academic core culminating in a senior thesis and oral defense. It has one of the highest Ph.D. production rates per capita in the sciences and humanities.

Rankings

U.S. News liberal arts: #60

Top programmes

Physics
Chemistry
Biology
English Literature
Psychology
Political Science

Notable alumni

Steve Jobs — Co-founder of Apple Inc. (attended briefly)
Barbara Ehrenreich — Author and political activist ('Nickel and Dimed')
Gary Snyder — Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and environmental activist
Larry Sanger — Co-founder of Wikipedia
John Sperling — Founder of the University of Phoenix
James Beard — Celebrated chef and food writer
Monica Lewinsky — Activist and former White House intern
Howard Hughes — Aviator, engineer, film director, and eccentric billionaire

Traditions

Renn Fayre (annual three-day festival)
The Thesis Parade
Naked Run (part of Renn Fayre)
Paideia (student-taught winter term)

If Reed College were…

As a food: Omakase at a tiny Portland sushi counter — Uncompromising, intensely crafted, no shortcuts, and not for everyone. You either appreciate the rigor and purity or you think it's pretentious. Either way, it's an experience that demands your full attention.
As an athlete: Bill Walton — Brilliant, eccentric, Portland-based, countercultural, and unapologetically intellectual. He was a champion who also read Kerouac and protested the war—Reed in basketball form.
As a person alive today: Boots Riley — The radical filmmaker and musician behind 'Sorry to Bother You'—Marxist, uncompromising, weird, and brilliant. He makes art that refuses to pander, just like Reed refuses to give grades or chase rankings.
As a historical figure: Simone Weil — The French philosopher and mystic who starved herself in solidarity with war victims, wrote dense treatises on ethics, and rejected comfort for intellectual purity. Reed students see themselves in her uncompromising comm
As a movie or TV show: The Social Network — Brilliant, neurotic, socially awkward people arguing intensely about abstract ideas while chain-smoking (metaphorically) and pulling all-nighters. Replace Harvard with Portland and Zuckerberg with a philosophy major writ
As a US president: Thomas Jefferson — Intellectual, idealistic, bookish, obsessed with first principles, and convinced that reason can solve everything. Both are brilliant and high-minded but also a bit removed from practical reality.
As a city: Cambridge, England — Historic, intellectual, insular, filled with people who care deeply about obscure academic debates, and beautiful in a way that feels both timeless and slightly removed from the modern world.
As an element: Uranium — Rare, powerful, unstable, and literally on campus in Reed's research reactor. It fuels intense reactions and requires careful handling—much like the student body.
As a car: 1985 Volvo 240 Wagon — Reed is the boxy, brilliant Scandinavian import that refuses to play status games—no grades, mandatory thesis, Hum 110, and a nuclear reactor run by undergrads. Durable, quirky, intellectually uncompromising, and beloved

Campus life

Campus life is fiercely intellectual, quirky, and politically liberal, with a strong DIY ethos and little emphasis on varsity sports or Greek life. Social life often revolves around intellectual debates in the dorms, student-run coffee shop (The Paradox), and unique campus events like Renn Fayre.