Macalester College Top Questions

The best thing about Macalester is the small liberal arts vibe in a bigger metropolitan area. It allows us to do internships unavailable to most other liberal arts schools in the middle of nowhere. Also, it's nice to get off campus and enjoy the perks of city life (museums, bars, shows, etc). Frequent student complaints include the campus being too liberal--when everyone agrees with each other it's difficult to debate topics in discussion based classes. Also, our athletics tend to be a bit of a bummer but the administration seems to be working on getting better athletes with the new athletic facilities coming in and our football team more than doubling in size in less than three years.

The school is small, the campus is small, but the opportunities are endless. It's great to be in the Twin Cities, an area that is extremely active, and teeming with academic, social, and political opportunities. It is well known, and well respected in the area, though it is not widely known outside of the Midwest. Pretty much every single person that I've met here has been friendly, welcoming, and interesting. There are some very fun things that happen every year, such as Springfest, Trads concerts, music, dancing, and good times. Sports teams exist, but the sports kids usually tend to keep to themselves. Oh, and the weather. Just be prepared for six months of winter. That being said, Spring and Fall are beautiful.

It is small and there are quite many international stdudents. Students here are quite aware of local and gloal issues. These i reallly like a lot. Sometimes i would like to have more free time and less stress, but i guess that is a part of learning and getting ready for life.

Macalester is a pretty small school (little more than 2,000, all undergraduates) and it's a very open-minded, liberal school. I absolutely love it, but at times people can get a little TOO politically correct. A good example: there was a recent controversy concerning a themed party on campus - the theme was "political correctness" and people had to basically come as the most politically incorrect thing they could think of. Someone came as an aborted fetus and I think someone might have come as a Nazi...not 100{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} sure about that, but you get the picture. People were obviously offended and, because the party happened on school-property, the school authorities got involved. Now, I'm sure the people who attended/planned the party did not mean for it to get as out of hand as it did, but people did end up getting offended. As a result, these students were verbally attacked and ostracized from the tight Mac community, even though they did not mean to hurt anyone. That, however, is the most extreme case that I've encountered here. The city - St. Paul - is absolutely amazing and Minneapolis is right across the river...gotta love the Twin Cities!

Macalester was/is the best option for me. It's located in a vibrant community with the wider Twin Cities area offering pretty much anything you could want. There are tons of bike trails and lakes for outdoor activities in all seasons, though it does get pretty cold. If you really want to be able to take advantage of the world outside of the college bubble, Mac is a great place to be. Most departments and courses are dedicated to introducing the students to that world, though it is possible to make it through four years without riding a city bus. But you would have to work at it. And the transit system isn't too hard to decipher. We're also pretty close to the airport, which is great. The campus itself is small and easy to navigate. As a theatre major, I have spent most of my time in the Fine Arts complex, which is about to be entirely remodeled (after forty years of outdatedness). I've noticed how tight-knit departments become since the school is not too large. The smaller ones almost become surrogate families for their students. Students are frequently invited to professors' homes for dinner and conversation. Conversation at Mac is the most amazing and intense I have ever experienced anywhere. That is one of the best aspects of the student body. The vast majority of students are incredibly smart and sincerely interested in examining modes of thinking and acting, including their own. Even when people are drinking excessively on the weekends, most of what we talk about is academically originated, or at least contextualized.

Macalester's administration is, as I said above, an impressive one. Hires are chosen very carefully, and public participation (from students) is nearly always included in even very important, high-profile decisions about who serves the positions that direct the school. There are logistical limits to public participation, and I feel Macalester often pushes them. It gives the school an air of community when a student is given the opportunity to voice an opinion. For example: your opinion about who is hired to teach a subject you are very passionate about. I think there are plenty of unusual things about Macalester, which is why I chose it. For example, for a kind of nerdy school, we have more than our fair share of people who do amazingly hip things right on campus. (Most people do hip things in Minneapolis) Guys walking tight-ropes strung across trees (big beautiful trees to climb!), people swinging fire balls around their bodies very rapidly, people practicing the fine art of Parqueur (see the Mac Weekly article of 2007), groups crowding around home-made telescopes, people constructing random works of sculpture, students sleeping outside in tents during The National Campus Energy Challenge (in February!), and the list goes on. They destroyed our swing set (a great class gift), but our facilities management director promised that it would be replaced. If not, there's a very good chance that there will be protests!

Macalester's academics are top notch. It is a small liberal arts school stuck in one of the largest metropolitain areas in the country. Though it can get cold, having the off campus opportunities, either academic based or for entertainment, that the Twin Cities offer is priceless. Even with being in the St. Paul with Minneapolis right next door, the campus is blocked from the bustle of Snelling Ave., giving it a secluded small rual campus feel. The small size of the campus not only allows for small class size meaning direct professor contact, but also not walking very far outside to get to class in the winter.

When people find out that I go to Macalester, they usually think it's a deli chain that we have down South. Not a lot of folks know much about it because it's so small and in the Midwest. At first, the size of the student body seems great, because your classes are tiny and you get to know everyone pretty easily and it's not intimidating, but after 3 years there it can seem a teensy bit suffocating. And I will say, I wish there was a little less campus gossip going around--because there are less than 1,900 of us, everybody knows your business. But at the same time, I love Mac because every kid there is just a goofy nerd who loves what they do: everyone seems to have so much energy and passion and excitement about what they study and what they want to do with their degree, my peers are always raising the bar for what I expect of and for myself in life. And the location is great, the Twin Cities have everything: live music, theaters, museums, NGOs, pretty churches, coffee shops, clubs, bars, baseball-hockey-basketball-football teams, delicious restaurants, a ridiculously international population, gorgeous parks, lakes (of course!), beautiful old houses, unreal sunsets, and tons of fluffy snow in winter.

Macalester is a small school and it is really nice most of the time. You know or at least recognize everyone on campus. The professors know your name, and even invite you to their houses for dinner sometimes. If you ever get sick of the people on campus, you are in a city, so you can leave easily to go somewhere else for a while. The vast majority of people at Macalester are very very liberal, which sometimes leads to big debates with the moderate and the very few conservative students. Most people at Macalester do not like sports very much (there are definitely people who play sports and enjoy watching them, but it's not at the same level as a school with a big football team). But, when you do go to games, there are great cheers. My favorite is: drink blood, smoke crack, worship Satan, go Mac!

When I tell people I go to Macalester, the first thing they tell me is i'm gonna freeze to death. And that's true during the winter. The second thing they tell me, if the person is from the area, is that it's an excelent school. If the person is not from the area, they probably have never heard about it before, although those who have, hold it in very high esteem. The school is small. Sometimes a bit too small. Even though it's not closed out from the city, Mac student's tend to stick with other Mac people and stay in its surrounding area (except from the eventual Downtown party's at clubs/bars). Classes are great in general. Professors are smart, funny, understanding, open and very good at teaching. There is the occassional rotten apple, but they don't stay very long. One of the best things about Mac, is how chilled it's people are. People are extremely smart, but they never show it off. At Mac, modesty is almost a norm, and showing off is badly seen, and uneffective. The best thing I've found at Mac though, are my friends. Extremely fun, smart and interesting people, they are very honest with their friendship, and are what makes Mac an excellent experience. Because it is true that you sometimes start feeling suffocated inside the "Mac bubble", I highly recommend any of the study abroad programs. The experiences you get while studying abroad are incredible, and it allows you to take a break from Mac most often during your Junior year, which is when you most feel like you need one. Administration is great and extremely helpful, and even if I have my quarrels with Residential Life, they are nevertheless, compared to most other universities, very chilled and soft on students.