Macalester College Top Questions

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Macalester classes are characterized by their small sizes, most are about a dozen students. WIth about 1950 students total, there is a strong sense of community as you may easily recognize nearly everybody on campus. Although you do lose anonymity, I believe the small size and the requirement to live on campus for two years establishes a strong school identity. When people hear that you go to Macalester, if they've heard of it, they know it is a very left leaning top tier school, far more than most institutions. Although students may have minor complaints, the administration really takes out grievancs to heart, which I believe is reflected by the schools retention rate of about 97{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c}.

The best thing about Mac is the class sizes are almost all under 20-25 students. You really get to know your professors, whom actually take an interest in your learning progression. Also students are always having intellectual discussions outside of class, which is a huge plus! 2000 undergrads is a good number in that you see familiar faces all the time, yet can still meet new people every day. When people hear I'm going to Macalester it's usually, "Oh that must be expensive" or "I've never heard of it." Little do they know about the massive financial aid students here get. Mac is sort of a hidden gem in the twin cities in the shadow of the U of M and St Thomas. Kind of why I love it. School pride is kind of lacking, but everyone here is here because they want to be here. You won't find many apathetic students. Students here have strong stances on issues, yet are open minded. We may not have massive crowds for the football games, but hey, its a LAC and that's expected.

MAC is an excellent school, situated on a beautiful campus, in a SAFE residential neighborhood, in the Twin Cities. The school is a good size for a liberal arts college. There is a lot of school pride, everyone is proud to be here. The most frequent student complaints are the res life staff (NOT RES LIFE ITSELF), and the administrative decisions financially.

Macalester is a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It is chock full of smart people from around the world, and as a result the campus is pretty much friendly to everything. There is a suprising diversity on campus given the small amount of kids there, and everyone seems to find a group that they can belong in. As such, the school has a very high quality of life. There is not a lot of school pride about Macalester's athletics, somthing that many would like to change but find it tough with so many international kids and ones who just plain don't care about sports.

Macalester is an awesome school academic wise. The classes are small and student-professor accessibility and relationship are second to none. It is an extremely liberal environment and this may come as a shock to some at first. The population is not too small and not too large. It is a very king and friendly community. When I tell people here at home that I go to Macalester, they ask where is that....when i say in Minnesota, they repeat "Where is that?"...lol. The Twin Cities area is awesome and has alot of activities. Macalester is a really really good school.

The location of the school is probably on of Macalester's greatest attributes. Situated in a beautiful old neighborhood in Saint Paul there is great access to public transportation into the downtowns of the Twin Cities and other interesting areas. It is also right along Grand Ave which has a number of great resturuants and coffee shops. As far as school pride their is very little and not a great sense of place like on other liberal arts campuses. The administration is very proud of its internationalism and their are a lot of international students and that is great and a really interesting element of the school but it often appears to be its major selling point and a recruiting tool.

Small, but a feeling of home. If you can find your right niche, you'll be fine.

The best thing about Mac is how much it makes you think. Having taken classes at large universities numerous times, I can tell you straight up that there I usually end up memorizing facts and theories and hardly put myself into any of my work; it's different at Mac. You learn to really think, about everything, and you carry those lessons inside and out beyond our little bubble - your whole perspective of the world changes. It's hard sometimes, but I've never regretted it once. While the school is wonderful the way it is, many of us, myself included, wish the school were bigger. It's just tiny. It feels huge when you get here, but that changes rather quickly. But it wouldn't be Mac if it had 10,000 students I suppose. If not larger, I wish we had more venues by which to interact with student from the many other schools in the area - I especially wish freshmen and sophomores had this, as they live on campus. Most people honestly just don't even know what Mac is. Which used to irritate me, but really, it's their loss - having been around a top ten school most of my life and switching to this environment, I know for a fact that Mac deserves just as much if not more praise than some of the big-namers. The cities have a good number of colleges, so I'd say you're in a "semi-college town." It's still a city (two, to boot), but there are a lot of students around, and the local businesses know that. Grand Ave is especially great for students and local residents alike. Mac's administration has its heart in the right place. Like any administration, though, it tends to be populated by older people, and thus things tend to change less quickly than the fiery students want them to. I'd have to say, though, that we have a relatively open and open-minded administration that will listen to what we have to say, even if they won't always act on it.

Macalester can sometimes get clicky and you especially notice this since it's such a small school. There are definitely those girls who you thought wouldn't be at college anymore, who make fun of people and are exclusive, but they go to good colleges too. At the same time, you can find your own group of really nice people who genuinely care about others and the world around them. Everyone kind of knows each other and it can get annoying at times. A lot of people know other people's business even though they may not even know those people personally.

Exaggerated internationalism. Incredible professors available. Students' passion to learn overrated in college brochures -- many are as indifferent about education as students in other undergraduate schools, like the Ivy Leagues (as surprising as that may sound...IVY LEAGUES? INDIFFERENT to education? Sad but true) But some incredible students available. Great food. Great. Smallness gets claustrophobic, but I wouldn't have it any other way. It's intimate and personal and memorable. It's nice to know that after leaving this place I will have remembered every corner, as familiar as home, because it's just that small. Great location. I like the availability of many homosexuals. It's a new experience. But one must always be aware that America is not such a liberal, gay-crazy bubble like Macalester.

The campus is small and familiar. It is extremely easy to navigate the buildings and find your classroom. When I tell people I go to Macalester, they usually don't know what it is, unless they are from the area. If they do know the school, they are usually impressed. The administration is alright, could use some work. There are mixed feelings about the president, Brian Rosenberg. The twin cities have great public transportation which makes going to college without a car very simple. The athletics are not great, but we are just finishing our new 41 million dollar recreation center, which will be nice.

Macalester is foremost a rigorous academic institution. No matter your major - chemistry or economics or anthropology or Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies or dance, you are going to work hard and learn how to be an active, engaged citizen. Mac is politically active and tends to be liberal, though not to the exclusion of people with other political/social leanings. Mac is a very ethnically diverse campus - we have students from some 80 countries, and our multitude of student organizations ensures that everyone has a smaller group and community. Despite this, after a year or two, the community can feel small. I don't know every single student's name, but I recognize about 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of the faces. However, Mac is smack-dab in the middle of St. Paul, and the Twin Cities community provides lots of off-campus people, activities and culture. The administration is great at empowering student initiatives, and lately has been a big part of Mac's climate crisis movement. The student body is working en masse on a global scale to address global warming, and has made some amazing strides already. Initiatives include going carbon-neutral on campus, engaging the surrounding community in the same thing and starting a global, grassroots movement for a new-energy economy. A frequent complaint I hear from the straight women is that there aren't many eligible, straight men. I dispute that argument.

I absolutely love Macalester. It has been the perfect match for me. A couple of its qualities bother me, however. One concerns the international students, of which Macalester is largely composed. They tend to be incredibly cliquish according to what area of the world they're from. This makes it hard for domestic and international students to interact on a regular basis, but there are several people, both domestic and international, who completely ignore these cliques and cross boundaries. The other complaint is the dating scene. For some reason, it is very weak or absent, altogether. There seems to be some inhibitions that Mac students have about approaching each other in a suggestive way, and I don't know why. I love the setting that Macalester is in. Saint Paul has a very neighborhoody feel, while still maintaining some minor resemblance to a city. This makes it easy to feel at ease, while also allowing you to explore and discover new places. Most students are happy to be here, but they're not very quick to express it. Most of the conversation concerning Macalester involves a complaint in some form or another, whether it be social life, financial aid, or the food.

The best thing about Macalester is its size. It embraces being a small liberal arts college in so many ways. Class sizes are remarkably small, and are ALWAYS taught by professors (or visiting lecturers). Professors are accessible, to the point of inviting students to their homes for dinner, which is something I always thought was just a stereotypical college guidebook comment. The campus is a manageable size, and though it's in a city is in a quiet residential neighborhood, so it's really the best of both worlds. Even better, and something I did not anticipate, is the way the school almost seamlessly blends into the neighborhood, in the sense that surrounding area is full of students, alumni, faculty, and people who are just generally friendly towards the school and the people who go there. When I tell people where I go to school, most of the comments I get are about how cold the winters must be. They are. But for me, that was fairly irrelevant - I bought a winter coat and kept going. The administration, to the best of my knowledge, is fairly tame. They make themselves very visible, which is good...but they also seem to beat the dead horse about their favorite brochure phrase, "global citizenship". To their credit, the campus is legitimately diverse in terms of having students from around the world, especially since it's a small school in the midwest. Something unique about Macalester is the "Veggie Co-op" - quite literally an on-campus group of vegetarians and vegans who live in converted loft-style rooms under the stadium and share a kitchen where they cook meals together. They throw the best Halloween party every year, make delicious food, and are generally an interesting group of people. You have to apply to live there, but from what I hear, its way worth it.

The best thing about Macalester is its commitment to being part of a global community. To fulfill that commitment, the school makes a great effort to attract international students as well as making study abroad opportunities very accessible to its domestic students. Furthermore, many of the classes have an international aspect built in which is furthered by the diverse students sitting in the classroom. The school also invited globally minded guests to campus to keep its students informed about the broader world.

Macalester is a great place. The size is one of my favorite things about it, although at times it does feel a little too small. I spend most of my time outside when its warm. When it gets cold out, I pretty much stay inside. St Paul is a great place to go to school. It is easy to get around with plenty of stuff to do. The hardest part is breaking out of the 'Macalester Bubble'. School Pride is different at Macalester. The student body takes pride in being one of the best liberal arts schools in the country. In terms of athletics, there is little interest outside of soccer. Personally, I am a big fan of the football team which has a small, devoted following. As the team gets better, I expect the following to increase.

The teachers at Macalester deserve to live in heaven. They respect and help their students as they would to their children. THe one thing I would chamge-abolish Queer Cabaree even though it is incredibly hilarious. Most of the time in campus, I walk in all corners of the campus and then I again walk all corners of the campus.

Ok, the best thing about Macalester is the food. Most students will tell you that college cafeteria food sucks. Well, Macalester is not so bad. We have fruit and a plethera of vegan/vegetarian foods (they're even labeled!!!). The dorms are a little bad your first 2 years (especially dupre or as the students call it duprojects) but they aren't that bad. Only thing I might change is the weather. It does get cold in Saint Paul. But the snow is pretty!!!!

While Macalester, like any school, has its flaws, overall I feel it has allowed me to meet a ton of amazing people of different backgrounds, personalities, and personal beliefs. To me, Macalester is full of caring people who legitimately want to make a positive change in the world. While there are a lot of people who party on the weekends, most people still care about their grades at least to some degree and are open to learning about other people's different ideas and cultures. I really valued my first year at Macalester, because it learned me to appreciate my background. When I first got to Macalester, I had an eye-opening experience. While listening to every individual in a circle of new people name off their places of origin, I realized how many people were either from a different country or had spent their lives hopping from place to place. I felt that, being a life-long resident of Kansas, I was somehow less important or interesting than those other people. However, as the year progressed, I learned that living in dozens of places does not necessarily make a person more knowledgeable or open-minded. A lot of international students or people I knew who had traveled a lot still displayed prejudices and intolerance. I learned that it is a person's willingness to learn about others, regardless of their external surroundings, that makes them wise and will allow him or her to learn more in the long-run.