Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

Reed Welcomes the Class of ’21

By Randall S. Barton on August 25, 2017 09:43 AM

Smart, talented, and 414 strong, the incoming class scored in the 96th percentile on the SAT and includes a blacksmith, a novelist, a champion weightlifter, and an alpaca farmer. Photo by Leah Nash

Welcome to Reed College, Benjamin and Isabel. Just two days after earthlings watched the moon obscure the sun, Reed seated its class of 2021—a collection of stars not likely to be eclipsed any time soon—at Convocation. With 414 students, it is the second-largest class in Reed’s history, and 12% of these students were valedictorians of their high school classes. They hail from 19 countries, including the United States, with California leading the states in student representation with 95 students, followed by Oregon (34), Washington (32), New York (23), and Texas (16). Among the many nations represented are Armenia, Georgia, India, Kuwait, Nepal, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe. Eleven percent are the first in their family to attend a four-year college. The most popular names in the class are Benjamin and Isabel, with six of each.

The class was drawn from a pool of 5,652 applicants, with an admittance rate of 35%, and another 17 students entered as transfers. Fifty-nine percent of the students ranked in the top 10% of their high school class, and the median scores on their SAT tests places them at the 96th percentile nationally, with scores of 694 for evidence-based reading, 694 for writing, and 707 for math.

It is also a diverse group, with 30% coming from multicultural families in the U.S., and another 15% arriving as international students. While the national average of the number of colleges students apply to is seven, the average for the discriminating Reed student to is 11. A number of students in the Class of ’21 are following in the footsteps of mom and dad, with 18 having parents who also attended Reed, qualifying them for membership in Offspring of Reed Generations of Yesteryear.

The class also includes a blacksmith, a raiser of alpacas, a four-time national qualifier in Olympic weightlifting, and a woman who started her own produce company at the age of 9, calling it Spider-Girl’s Produce. Look out, Whole Foods!

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