University of Redlands

In My Humble Opinion
1

I am a graduate of that fine institution

Since most people I meet have never heard of it, I want to poll the teeming millions:

  1. Did you attend the U of R?

  2. If so what years?

  3. If not have you ever heard of it?

  4. What do you hear?

  5. Where do you think it is?

Thanks,

Indysloth

2

  1. No.

  2. –

  3. Yes.

  4. That it is predominantly white.

  5. Redlands, CA.

3

Vandal

Re your number 4,

unfortunate that that is your impression, sure it is correct but, for that to be what you’ve taken away from hearing about Redlands, what a bummer.

At any rate U Redlands is 70% white (all data on Universities is from the USN&WR Website.

Per census.gov - Aug 1 2000 estimate for the country - Non Hispanic Whites are 71.4% of the population.

So U Redlands is no more or less predominantly white than the US.

Also from Census.gov, California is 49.8% non hispanic white. So in terms of the home state, it is much more white.

In terms of other Universities - % White
Princeton 68% (I suppose it can be described as predominantly white)
Harvard 59%
Yale 64%

So Redlands is definitely whiter than our nations top universities, but not necessarily by a whole lot.

Top tier California Schools
Stanford 51%
CIT - 60%
Berkely 41%
Cal Davis - 50%
Cal Irvine - 29%
UCSB - 67%
UCLA - 41%
USC - 49%
UCSD - 53%
Pepperdine - 70%

Okay, even I didn’t think Redlands was a white as Pepperdine. Clearly the best California schools tend to be as diverse (at least in terms of non hispanic white population) as the state as a whole.

Other Schools Ranked above or at the Redlands level (1-6) in the category it is ranked in (Western Universities)
Trinity (TX) - 78%
Santa Clara (CA) - 62%
Loyola Marymount (CA) - 56%
Gonzaga (OR) - 85%
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo(CA)-74%
Linfield (OR) - 86%
U of Portland - 83%

Redlands is in the middle of the pack of the California schools but is less white than Trinity or the Oregon Schools.

Overall I can’t argue that Redlands isn’t predominantly white, particularly when stacked up against California, and the biggest and best schools in California, but if I were to hear that term to describe a university I might attend, it would conjure up images of institutional intolerance and racism, ain’t the case.

Re: question 5, I asked this because most people think Redlands is in Northern CA or Oregon.

4

I am also interested in more info on the U of Redlands. They are encouraging me to apply, and while my interests lie elsewhere, I must say my interest in piqued. I wanna hear all kinds of reviews about it though, before I go through the application process.

5
  1. No
  3. Yes
  4. Overwhelmingly white student population consisting of partying frat boys, shallow sorority girls and athletes. :eek:
  5. The armpit of civilization, er, I mean the Inland Empire (I can say this, I lived there!) :smiley:
    FWIW, I grew up in San Bernardino county, and U of R is not representative of the county. Then again, the city of Redlands is hardly representative of the county. There’s much talk about the ratio of professors to students, which is a good thing, though the whole “we’re so progressive because of the Johnston Center for Individualized Learning” thing is a little misleading. I’ve talked to classmates from high school who’ve said that it consists of a very small portion of the student population. So, while you do have some opportunity to develop an individualized learning program, U of R doesn’t differ much from other small liberal arts colleges. But, I have heard that their adult education program (Whitehead? college) is good.

I don’t mean to come down hard on your school. :frowning: You asked what I’ve heard. All I know is that I had to go there all the time for field trips in high school. When it came time to apply for college, I never considered it, and it was the one college I had actually visited. Please accept this as my opinion based on personal experience with the school and a small segment of its student body. I only replied to this thread (and went into more detail than I probably would have otherwise) because pepperlandgirl asked for a review.

(Apology for Hijack) Note to pepperlandgirl: You don’t know me, but I’ve been lurking a while and wanted to give you a little information to help with your decision. It is a small school. Which is good and bad. You’ll receive personal instruction from your professors and will probably never see a TA the whole time you’re there. On the other hand, if you’re like a former classmate of mine, you’ll work your ass off the whole time, graduate at the top of your class, and still only get admitted to a second-tier grad school. Though that’s assuming you want to go to grad school at all. (This is not a statement on how you won’t get into a good grad school if you attend a small liberal arts college–which is totally not true.) It’s not even a statement on how you won’t get into a good grad school if you go to U of R. It’s just something to think about (yeah, like applying to college isn’t hard enough without having to think 4 years into the future about going to grad school!). The person I know did identify the size and reputation of the school as factors in not getting into a better grad school.

The social scene revolves around frat and dorm parties, and athletics play a big role on campus. It is pretty close to skiing and the surrounding mountains are great for hiking and mountain biking.
Again, I must stress that all of my comments are IMHO, based on what I’ve heard and my own experience.

6

  1. Did you attend the U of R? Nope.

  2. If so what years? Nope.

  3. If not have you ever heard of it? Yup.

  4. What do you hear? They have poetry classes (one of my poetry profs also taught at U of R) and that the campus, and its surroundings, are very picturesque.

  5. Where do you think it is? Southern CA. Since it’s supposed to be pretty, I imagine it’s a little bit out from the sprawling concrete scab known as LA.

7

Although I never attended school there, I do know the campus.Being a graduate of Redlands High School, I had attended many high school and U of R football games. I also have been known to frequent many a frat parties, being that I lived on Grove Street, a few blocks from the campus. My mom wanted me to go there but I had my sights on an Architecture Degree, which they don,t offer. I have lived in Minnesota since 1986, and the last time I was back there was in 97. Man has that city changed, where did all the orange groves go?
Well I kind of got off track there, but I will say this, the U of R is a beautiful campus with a high academic tradition. Anyone who goes there will have their lives enriched. It a cool school.
GO BULLDOGS!!

8

one_madJack, I do plan on going to Law School, and I am definitely looking into the smaller schools. For example, UCLA is not even on my list of schools to apply to, but UC RIverside is right up my ally, due to school size.
Decisions, decisions…though I do greatly appreciate your comments Jack. :slight_smile:

9

  1. Did you attend the U of R? No.

  2. If so what years? NA

  3. If not have you ever heard of it? Yes. My second cousin is a junior there right now.

  4. What do you hear? Well, she likes it. She says the campus is beautiful.

  5. Where do you think it is? Um, in Redlands. Not too far from my cousin’s family’s house in Palm Desert. East of LA.

10

Overwhelmingly white? Predominantly white?

Like I said, whiter than California, but not whiter than the US or schools in it’s category.

It’s been ten years since I’ve been there but here goes:

Upsides:

  1. Student teacher ratio - absolutely a positive, no one going there ever has a hard time seeing a professor or getting any one on one assistance from a professor
  2. Teachers care about teaching - it’s not a research institution where the prof’s care more about publishing than they do about.
  3. The social scene - but maybe only for a partying, overwhelmingly white frat boy like me. Hell any school where my roommate sold dope to the Dean of Students has got to be a good place to party. It is greek dominated (although greeks are never more than about 15% of the population), but believe me when I say this, the greeks at Redlands are not like the greeks at the big national schools. The organizations are all local and aren’t beholden to any national organizations. The houses only have one or two bedrooms, and a large room for parties. My dues were $50 a semester, so we were hardly exclusionary on a financial basis. And at the risk of sounding like “some of my best friends…” My frat had actives who were white (overwhelmingly), but also included Asians, Asian Americans, Latinos in terms of race, Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Agnostics and Atheists in terms of religion - no women, and no African Americans while I was an active.
  4. One of the only heterodox econ programs in the country
  5. Damn fine liberal arts education
  6. Strong programs - Music, Communicative Disorders, Primary Education and surprisingly Accounting (my Financial Accounting prof was on the FASB, and basically taught the class to get free tuition for his son, a music major)
  7. Large percentage of students go onto grad school - 30% immediately (and I would imagine a fair number later, but see downsides)

Downsides:

  1. Smog - El Paso Texas is the armpit of the Universe but San Berdoo is close.
  2. Nothing like the real world. No need to take any responsibility for your actions at Redlands. Most of my classmates went thru a culture shock upon leaving
  3. Cost/Focus on Money - I went there because I had a full ride, no way would I pay that tuition (over $100k for four years with room and board, which you have to pay unless you actually are from Redlands, it has doubled since 1987). For that much money I could have gone to Arizona, earned a 4 year degree, taken 2 years to read any books I wanted to, then go back and get a graduate degree and still have money left over for a good car. The focus really changed while I was there, James Appleton, whose prior academic claim to fame was being the lead fund raiser for USC, was named president and began a fund drive that seems to be never ending, One of my frat bros was a member of the royal family of Nepal, and this idiot (Appleton) once shoved me out of the way to talk to Sid, clearly I was never going to swing the kind of donation that Siddhartha Sumsher Junga Bahadur Rana would. Also, despite no athletic scholarships in Division III, a lot of steroid freaks who couldn’t string together a sentence ended up on the same scholarship I was.
  4. Grad School - I think the real reason such a large number of students go to grad school, is that after the culture shock of going from Redlands to the real world a lot of students run back to school. I don’t know how things have changed in the hot economy, but all my econ degree go me in 1991 was a job keeping books at a motel.

In terms of One Mad Jack’s other thoughts -

Johnston - absolutely true, touted beyond belief, but a very small part of the community, also more exclusionary in terms of political correctness and groupthink than the entire greek community combined. Still, if you know exactly what you want to study and it doesn’t fall into any traditional program, this is the place to do it. Johnston students don’t seem to have any trouble getting into any grad school.

Whitehead - Redlands seems to count these students in it’s total enrollment, never once saw a Whitehead student in a class I had, totally separate faculty, classes are often taught in locations far from Campus, still a good program from all I’ve heard.

Athletics were not big on campus when I was there, but I can see how that might’ve changed in the last 10 years, given Appleton’s focus on it. When I was there you could count the number of students at basketball games on one hand.

Pepperlandgirl - according to USNews 1% of Redlands grads go onto law school, seems low, since my class was about three hundred and 4 of my 10 frat bros in that class are now attorney’s, so unless they are the only ones, the stat seems off.

Redlands and UC Riverside are like night and day - UCR is primarily a commuter school and seems to be focused on business and accounting. UCR seems to be the red headed step child of the UC system. (All the UC’s I named in my reply on race, are in the top 50 schools in the country, no Riverside).

Thanks to everyone for the replies - As you might be able to tell, I have mixed emotions U of R - I had a great time there and I’d put my undergrad education up against anyone’s, but I also saw the beginning of the quest for the dollar (they’ll never get a cent of mine) and a deemphasis on education - still I’d do it all again, provided I didn’t have to foot the bill.

11

I’m pleased that you mentioned the cost to attend U of R because I wanted to mention it, but felt my post was too long. The people I know who attended got scholarships, and the money was the main reason for their attendance.

pepperlandgirl—since you are looking at smaller schools, and U of R is encouraging you to apply, perhaps you can look into applying just to see what kind of aid package they’ll give you. Since you’re a top student, I imagine that they’d give you some handsome scholarships. It’s been my experience that it’s easier to get scholarhips at smaller, private schools than at huge public universities. You might even be able to get them to waive the application fee.

12

The small universities and liberal arts students seem to have a dual nature, they need the rich kids to pay full tuition to support the place, then they offer killer scholarships to national merit scholars or anybody with high SAT/ACTs or top of class - to help pad those statistics that USN&WR report. For an upper middle class kid like me, it was great, I didn’t break my parents trying to go to an Ivy League school, nor did I end up with any debt (until grad school anyway).

Also don’t let them dick you on tuition only, the room and board fees generally cover some of the operating expenses for the academic side as well (it’s why Redlands requires all its FT UG’s to live on campus).

13

This has been very educational. I am going to apply to as many Universities as I can afford to, because I want a wide variety. Right now I’m up for the Academic, Presidential (I think) and Creative Writing scholarships (or are they grants? I’m too lazy to look) and I’ve already got them to waive the application fee. :slight_smile: