Grinnell College Top Questions

Grinnell tries to maintain a high level of diversity amongst the student body, both racially and socio-economically. While there are exceptions, most Grinnell students are upper-middle class and come from educated families. A large percentage of Grinnellians hail from the Midwest (Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Minnesota), with some Northeasterns and Northwesterns in the mix, but there are fewer people from the Southeast. While there is a minimal level of clique-forming, Grinnell students will freely interact and work with each other.

Grinnell's student body is incredibly diverse: the only thing we all have in common is acceptance. No matter where you are, people will always have people with whom they are closer than they are with others, but there are no restrictions on with whom you can become close.

Students are for the most part realy friendly, caring and down to earth. I think the student body at grinnell is encourages everyone to act and dress as they like without being overly paranoid about the reaction. Highheals are rare, yet some people do wear them, and being well dressed is not considered a crime at Grinnell either.

We are generally apathetic, however restrictions on social freedom usually get a strong negative reaction from the student body. If you are anti-LGBQT here, you will not find many friends here, we are very open to gender and sexual pluralism. Most people are aware and informed on political/environmental/economic issues at large, but few people can be bothered to do anything practical towards any sort of ends. While people end up hanging out with their friend groups, most people have diverse enough backgrounds that they will overlap with many different groups, and no group is exclusive in any sense. You might feel like you only hang out with your friends but through academics and the campus wide party scene everyone is comfortable being around everyone. Socio-economic representation is very diverse, with the lower end being over-represented here in comparison to other schools. Our non-caucasian population is large, but mainly from international students; domestic minorities groups are heavily latino and asian with black students being very under-represented.

I came to Grinnell from a high school class of 36, all of whom were white, middle class, straight and Mennonite. Now, I am in a class of almost 450 students from all sorts of racial, economic, religious and sexual backgrounds and I love it. I can't imagine anyone would feel terribly out of place at Grinnell. There are too many wonderful, accepting people here for a person to honestly feel like they don't belong and that no one cares about them. Students are extremely politically aware, especially during election time. There really isn't anything students won't protest.

Most people are very open. I rarely find people who are intolerant or racist or anything like that. It's mostly about who you surround yourself with.

We are a very liberal campus. So liberal, often it makes moderate students here look like pure, red-blooded southern conservatives. The majority of students are politically aware, if not politically active. We do have conservatives on campus, but they are sometimes looked down upon as if associated with the neoconservatives (they never are). Our campus is open and accepting; we really want to accept all, but often those who are considered homophobes will not like campus at all. That is one thing our campus needs to work on: with hate, fight with love, as hate against hate produces a war.

Grinnell is full of quirky people, but maintains a level of normality. It is common to see someone strolling in the dining hall wearing a cape or a bright tie-dyed shirt. Most students are comfortable with being casual and there isn't too much emphasis placed on appearance. However, because the winter can be so harsh, it's not uncommon to see almost every girl on the first day of 68 degree weather in April wearing a sun dress. When the opportunity arises, Grinnell students clean up real nice. When there is a formal event, students are always impressed with how good everyone looks and always comment on how we should dress up more often; yet, we realize that there are more important things that focusing too much on dressing-up so only doing so every once in a while is fine. Students at Grinnell love to have a good time and let loose on the weekends. Themed parties, dances, and drinking events occur every weekend and almost all of them are open to the student population. Students from other schools who visit on the weekends often rave about the fun parties and the freedom we have back at home or at their schools. While it's a good time, Grinnell students appreciate the responsibility they are given with self-governance and do their best to keep a level of maturity and safety. Students are primarily left in terms of politics and they are active. Many students returned for the Iowa caucus in November- some even flew back to Iowa for them! However, students do not fuss about politics too much and remain fairly neutral during the year, focusing more on school and friends. Students will fight for what they believe in when the time arises. For example, the hate crimes against the gay community that erupted this year were met with many types of support from the students on campus. Students may be liberal, but they are also moral and they know that whether you are left or right on issues of sex, hate is never acceptable. It is nice to see that the students here care a lot about and respect each other.

An ultra-conservative student would feel out of place at Grinnell. There are some such students here, but it seems like many of them feel ostracized or looked-down upon. Because students come from literally every kind of background imaginable (though a fair number of them come from wealthy families), it would be impossible for diverse students to not interact. Fashion and style are all over the place, from Hollister to J. Crew to thrift store to cloaks to homemade to wranglers, and everything in between. Anything goes. For the most part, students here accept one another. Rich, poor, international student or as white as it gets, straight or L/G/B/T, genius or just smart, athletically inclined or athletically impaired, people here accept you. A hate crime on campus sparked outrage throughout the entire community. Jocks and non-jocks showed up to watch one men's basketball player break the 2000-point plateau. The International Student Organization's cultural night was standing-room only a half-hour before the show, as was the LGBT group Stoneco's Spring Drag Show Extravaganza. Grinnell has a diverse, dynamic community where students support one another.

I'm hispanic, sometimes I do get homesick because Grinnell is predominantly white. However, a word of advice to all the minorities who read this or even anyone not from the midwest, tell yourself, "I'm studying abroad at Grinnell!" Because basically we are. I'm from Texas, and my family or me cannot afford multiple trips home throughout the semester. I got one roundtrip ticket, the beginning of school and the day after finals. So really, I'm stuck here whether I like it or not. Although, I must say Grinnellians are very friendly! Staff, Professors, students, everyone, all friendly. Ok, maybe 90{4a082faed443b016e84c6ea63012b481c58f64867aa2dc62fff66e22ad7dff6c} of everyone involved with the school.

Grinnell students are typically liberal and from what I've seen they tend to be from fairly wealthy backgrounds. Everyone gets along well but there are some groups who don't really interact with the others.

Suits, medieval gowns, sweats, t-shirt and jeans--I've seen it all in class. I've found a wonderful, religiously diverse group of friends whose religions are important to them, but I've heard others complain that their religiosity--especially if it's Christian--has alienated them from their companions. What would a survey of four dining hall tables look like? Table 1 is full of geeks. Some of them may be in fantasy or medieval garb, if there's a special event that day. They may be discussing the weekend's Dungeons and Dragons session, the relative merits of different versions of Star Trek, or contingency plans for the zombie apocalypse. Or, y'know, today's class debates, dining hall food, national politics, etc. We're normal people too. Table 2 is the Ultimate Frisbee team. I can't hear what they're talking about, but they're laughing a lot and clearly enjoying each other's company. Someone flings a banana peel down the table and yells, "SQUID!!" Everyone else takes up the cry, stabbing at the peel with their forks as it passes. As soon as it's thoroughly dead, conversation resumes as if nothing happened. Table 3 is a group of environmentally-minded students debating how to make the campus more green. Someone is giving an impassioned speech about how energy inefficient the newly-constructed buildings are. Someone else is talking about improving the (already quite good) dorm recycling program. And that girl from Free the Planet is complaining that Victoria's Secret is still printing thousands of catalogues on old-growth forest paper. Table 4 is a freshman tutorial reunion. They're catching up on each other's lives, talking about relationships, majors, and future plans. Two of them are still close friends three years after their tutorial. Many of them have only seen each other in passing since, or had a few classes together. No one's forgotten each other, though.

If you at all religious or conservative, watch out. You will be discriminated against, and don't expect the administration to do anything about it.

People here are mostly liberal and accepting. I don't think anyone would feel out of place. I've seen the weirdest people here and they all seem to do just fine. You can find all types of students at Grinnell: mainstream, hippie, the laid-back type, the cut-throat type, the super-nice people and the super-mean people. You name it, we have it. There are four tables in the dining hall. One would have a student eating alone and studying. He belongs to the 4.0 type. The second table will have a bunch of multi-cultural students talking loudly and laughing at full volume. The third one will have about ten Chinese students talking in Mandarin and no one would understand what the hell they are talking about. The last table may have some Usher-type hippies, with the "hey yo" and "wat sup" attitude. Financial background is a no-no in conversation at Grinnell. You'd better not mention it or people will think you're a jerk. And most people don't seem to care how much they will earn in the future. Whenever I say I want to go to law school, people give me that "oh, he's that guy" look. Basically, most Grinnellians are not type-A, except for some.

Most students just wear whatever is comfortable, and that means anything. I believe that the statistic on Grinnell graduates is that 1/3 get a job right away, 1/3 go into graduate school, and the other 1/3 do service work such as Teach for America, Peace Corps, or a Grinnell program Grinnell Corps. I'm going to teach chemistry, physics, and math in Western Africa next year for the Peace Corps.