Over the ski week, my son and I took a swing through Oregon to see some colleges. It was a great trip. We hit perfect sunny weather, which should fool any student into thinking Oregon is THE place to head for college. There are some excellent schools up there for creative types like the kids at The Marin School.
Our favorite - University of Oregon. Our impression was that it is a large university but not too large. About 16,000 undergrads, which is half of some of the big state schools. The campus is beautiful, very green, very college like. Great facilities, wide range of majors and programs, and probably from what we could tell, a great college experience. My son liked it a lot. And they filmed the movie"Animal House" there—which gives me pause but he seemed stoked about it. I wonder why. Great architecture school too, possibly one of my son's interests.
The other very cool school was Lewis & Clark College near Portland. Much smaller. 2000 undergrads ... the "Marin School" of colleges in that the kids get a lot of attention and access to profs. Classes are small. A shuttle runs into the city in about 20 minutes, so the kids get the best of both worlds. A small liberal arts college that is located in a forest and a big city nearby for culture. Great, great feel to the school. One dorm is devoted to artistic kids (with its own photo dark room and ceramics room in the dorm) and another to outdoorsy kids. So you can meet other like-minded students.
My son was less interested in Oregon State -- nothing wrong with it, but Corvallis seems very small town.
Willamette University was a nice campus, but didn't feel right to him. They seemed to have a great science program for kids who are interested in life sciences.
We would definitely recommend a trip to Oregon for TMS kids looking to venture a little further for college. We were very impressed and it didn't rain at all. I bet it never does, either.
