Grinnell College Top Questions

It's in a really small town. I think that if the town were a little bit larger there would be more opportunities to get off campus. Sometimes it feels sort of stifling on campus just because basically everything that there is for students to do happens on campus.

The worst thing is that people target you as an athlete as though you're inferior socailly and academically. Your "peers" immediately see you as a sub-standard student almost ALWAYS (I have friends who hang out with me "IN SPITE of" playing football) and assume that you'll just be another jock. The mojaority of my friends are athletes and the rest of them see being a (collegiate) athlete as some sort of major character flaw. It seems that people blame athletes herebecause of athletes they met in high school.

Small school in the middle of Iowa without much outdoor recreation easily available to the students.

It can feel small sometimes, but there are ways to escape that.

I don't like how much drinking happens on campus because I am not a big drinker. Sometimes I find it hard to find other people who want to hang out and have fun on the weekends but do NOT want to drink.

The tendency for stress to multiply manifest during finals week - because it's tough, and small.

The lack of "minors". I would have liked to minor in art, theater, or music since I'm looking to go into Arts Therapy, but I can't. Instead, Grinnell has a selection of interdisciplinary concentrations to choose from. These include subjects like Neuroscience, Gender and Women's Studies, Environmental Studies, etc. Nobody mentioned this when I was applying. It's a small setback though. I can still take art and music classes to get the kind of well-rounded academic experience I want.