Kenyon College Top Questions

The majority of students at Kenyon are very nerdy. The closest you get to a popular kid in high school is most often found on a sports team. The campus is also very liberal, and most students are very active in current political conflicts.

TOTALLY FALSE. Well, not completely. Let me just preface this by saying that I'm an Ohio native, so I get defensive about this one. But in all honesty, you forget about the isolation. There's very little cabin fever. When academics aren't keeping you busy, all you want to do is relax and take a break from the stresses of school. As long as you've got great people with whom to hang out and blow off steam, you don't really need to go places or do things in order to have fun. That's what we call the Kenyon bubble. It's both your best friend and your worst enemy. I'll come home for break and realize that I've never heard of any of the movies that are out or the songs that are on the radio. That can be startling.

The hippie stereotype might still be there, but the hippies aren't.

While there certainly are students from privileged backgrounds, saying the student body is entirely composed of this demographic couldn't be farther from the truth.

All stereo-types are based on a degree of truth; that said, only the latter seems true of almost all Kenyon students. The thing I love about Kenyon is that for such a small school, it actually has a good mix of students - we have an active Republican and Democratic and (slight active :) ) Liberterian society; we have religious groups from Western and Eastern faiths; there is an active sporting and fine arts scene. You get your rich kids who don't know what it is to not be able to afford everything, but you've got kids like me who couldn't go to Kenyon if not for government funding. And somehow we all co-habitate and find our common ground.

I've encountered a huge quantity of selfishness and and thoughtlessness beneath the accurate exterior.

I'd say all these statements are accurate, and by and large the current student body hopes to maintain that stereotype as part of Kenyon's charm. We're all hard working and there are many amazingly smart and talented people, but we also goof around, have geeky, funky, or weird interests, and are basically fun people.

As with all stereotypes, the ones about Kenyon are based on a grain of truth; but, for the most part, these cursory glimpses barely manage to skim the surface of what's actually there. While its location is very rural, Kenyon's atmosphere is more reminiscent of a liberal-thinking utopia than a backwards small town. Professors, students, staff, and townsfolk all intermingle on a daily basis, forming a solid sense of community that I haven't found anywhere outside of Gambier. As for the students, intelligence reins and you find that even the most unlikely looking person is well-informed and able to engage you in a debate ranging from politics to classical literature to sports. Everyone at Kenyon is there because they chose to be there, because it drew them in, so it's rare to find someone that doesn't appreciate what they have at Kenyon.

To some degree, yes. But Kenyon is what you make of it and so many people do not fit any of these stereotypes.

Few students would match the aforementioned persona, but nearly every student would overlap in several major ways.

While there are a lot of spoiled, rich white kids at Kenyon, they don't make up the entire student body. Unfortunately, Kenyon's tuition is extremely high (one of the highest in the nation), which means that Kenyon students generally tend to be well-off financially. But many students, myself included, wouldn't be going there if we didn't receive a lot of financial aid. And any college you go to is going to have spoiled, rich white kids. There's no escaping that.

Whether or not this stereotype is true depends on the person. I would say the stereotype is least true of seniors who are, by necessity, forced to plan for life after Kenyon. The addition of the NY Times in the dining hall has also helped to connect Kenyon with the world at large. In terms of local connections, there are a variety of organizations, many volunteer, that interact with the Knox county community.

not always

the diversity is pretty bleak here. mostly, it's a lot of wealthy suburban kids. there are the hippies too, but even they come from mostly affluent backgrounds.

They are not. I am not up-tight nor am I an English major.

For the most part, yes. Most of the students here come from fairly affluent families, since it does cost $40,000 a year. But not everyone is preppy.

Sometimes I think they are true-- some people have money, but I don't think they necessarily flaunt it, they are just able to pay for some luxuryies. And some of my friends at state schools think that all of the people that go here are rich-- which is not true. The other thing is that lots of people think we are liberal hippies. Which could be true for some of the population, but there are lots of preppy people as well. I think it is pretty mixed.

most of the students are definately from the upper class, or have that mindset. students are definately disconnected from the outside world. a lot of them are from cities, and they don't understand things like farming and villages.

To an extent-- there seem to be a lot of students who enjoy balancing the two categories above, but some do fit the stereotypes perfectly. However, the school stereotypes are pretty accurate except for the assumption that students get along well with Mt. Vernon.

There is a significant amount of well-to-do white students here, but the college is being very active about changing that. A lot of my friends are wealthy, but I never feel isolated, left out, or different because I am not. People are Kenyon are very accepting and friendly.