Colleges Oberlin College

Oberlin College www.oberlin.edu

Oberlin College and Conservatory is a private institution that was founded in 1833. Its 440-acre campus is located in Oberlin, Ohio, 35 miles southwest of Cleveland. All students are required to live either in College housing or an Oberlin Student Cooperative Association (OSCA) co-op. OSCA, Oberlin’s largest student organization, offers an alternative to College-run housing and dining. Among the 150-plus student organizations are the Student Senate, Oberlin Film Series and Swing Dance. Athletics play a big role in student life, as well. The Conservatory of Music is located on the college campus. Conservatory admission is selective, with over 1400 applicants worldwide auditioning for 120 seats. There are 500 performances yearly, most free of charge, with concerts and recitals almost daily. The Allen Memorial Art Museum, with over 13,000 holdings, was the first college art museum west of the Alleghenies.

Academics

Oberlin is comprised of the College of Arts and Sciences and the Conservatory of Music, which offers bachelor of music degrees and a number of master’s programs. It’s regarded as one of the best undergraduate music schools in the country. Oberlin also has the Experimental College, which offers for-credit courses taught by students, administrators, townspeople and faculty that tend to focus on nontraditional subjects. The College of Arts & Sciences offers more than 60 majors, minors, and concentrations. Oberlin is a member of the Great Lakes Colleges Association and the Five Colleges of Ohio consortium, which also includes Denison, Kenyon, Ohio Wesleyan, and the College of Wooster. The student-faculty ratio at Oberlin is 9:1, and the school has 79% of its classes with fewer than 20 students. Popular majors include Music Performance, Biology, and Psychology.

Special Highlights

Cooper International Learning Center. The Paul and  Edith Cooper International Learning Center is an educational laboratory and social center that enables students, faculty, staff, and community members to build proficiency in world languages, consider new perspectives, and explore cultures. We promote language learning and teaching through professional development and student support, while connecting people and organizations to encourage collaborative research and the internationalization of liberal arts education. The CILC sees itself as primarily a digital makerspace as it encourages the building of relevant artifacts connected to language, culture, and many other disciplines. This is done by having trained staff and accessing state-of-the-art resources including a green screen recording room, audio recording booth, 3D printers, and more.

Libraries & Collections. Oberlin students have access to superior library resources in four distinct facilities, including three specialized libraries that are devoted to art, music, and science: Clarence Ward Art Library has collections including architecture, painting, sculpture, prints and drawings, new media, photography, and the decorative arts, plus materials on anthropology, archeology, and landscape architecture; Conservatory Library features collections of sound recordings, musical scores, books, and periodical titles covering Western Art music, works of major composers, and unique “Special Collections”; Science Library is devoted to astronomy, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, geology, neuroscience, and physics, as well as related subjects in agriculture, botany, medicine, technology, science education, zoology, and history of science.

School Mission & Unique Qualities

From its founding in 1833, Oberlin College has been a school with many missions. Beginning with abolition and coeducation, and most recently addressing the challenges of climate change, Oberlin has always been – to quote historian Geoffrey Blodgett ’53 – a “peculiar mix of scholarly ambition and stubborn moral idealism.” Oberlin is the oldest coeducational liberal arts college in the United States and the second-oldest continuously operating coeducational institute of higher learning in the world. The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. Oberlin is a place of intense energy and creativity, built on a foundation of academic, artistic, and musical excellence. With a top liberal arts college, world-class conservatory, and art museum all on a single campus, it is the ideal laboratory in which to study and design the world you want.

Student Reviews…

“The diversity of backgrounds, interests, and perspectives among my peers enriches every aspect of campus life. Whether engaging in spirited discussions in the classroom, collaborating on projects with fellow students, practicing and playing games with my lacrosse team or simply sharing meals in the dining hall, I was constantly inspired.”