Bates College

I chose Bates because it was the best school I was recruited for to play my sport at and because they are relativly generous with their financial aid packages. As an aspiring politics major i understood before hand Bates was a left wing institution like most colleges, unfortunatly when i arrived i quickly understood that if you had a differeing opinion from the far, far left you would have to keep quiet in fear of bad grades from your professors and losing your friends. The political opinions of the professors and students are reflected in the bates administrations rabid approach to increasing the racial "diversity" of the school at the cost of the overall academic reputation of the college as these less qualified students drive up the acceptance rate and hurt the college in competitive rankings. But if the thought of one-party-college doesn't bother you that much and you think diversity at the cost of your school getting worse is worth it, here are some other points to understand before you attend bates.

The party scene here is simply bad. I have only been here one semester and i and the majority of my friends are sick of the generick frye street house parties that happen on the weekends. They are usually pretty boring and get shut down within an hour by the crazed campus security force which is under orders by the president of the college to crack down on student drinking. Upperclassmen at bates are particualrly upset that the administration has cancelled several campus wide parties that were traditions for decades in the past.

Another downfall of Bates is that the student body has no school spirit. No one really ever attends the sports games or cares how well they do. Students don't even wear bates clothing around campus.

But the biggest downfall of this colleges is with out a doubt its location in Lewiston, Maine- a rundown mill town that has been struggling with high crime and unemployment for decades. The residents of lewiston dispise bates students and will verbally harass you if they find out you attend the college (this has happened to me 3 times in one semester). For some reason bates thinks the city of lewiston is a selling point for the college and they go out of their way to push this point through. During orientation week upperclassmen led tours of the downtown lewiston area with groups of around 20 freshman each. In my group one of the girls was verbally threatened by a homeless drug addict and then were were collectivly heckled by a group of lewiston somalis. It is also a townie tradition to drive by the bates campus and yell racial slurs at the minority students. What a selling point! Because Lewiston is an awful dangerous town, bates students never leave campus and you will be particualrly trapped if you don't have a car on campus. Students who do have cars often go to portand for the day to escape.

Overall in my opinion, bates is a dying school. It is financially unstable and has the lowest endowmnet out of any of the nescac schools (263 million) but instead of trying to fix the many problems this school has the administration would prefer to focus on social justice and racial diversity because aparently diversity of thought, opinion, and creativity does not matter to them. If you are rich, white, liberal, and from New England you will probably do fine here just make sure you purchase an $1,000 canada goose jacket to fit in and don't leave your dorm room after 10 because you might get attacked by a townie (yes that has happened here as well).

1st Year Male -- Class 1920

Individual Value: A, Surrounding City: F

Overpriced, understaffed, lacking in rigor. I graduated from Bates in 2005 with a degree in psychology. My entire time there I did not have a class with under 30 students, and never had a class discussion of any rigor. The administration is vindictive and arbitrary. As when they denied my friend graduation based on a single transfer credit - he was able to graduate after retaking the exact same course "pre-approved." As when they encouraged me not graduate, because I was behind 5k in bills after paying 130k. I graduated a semester early, to get out and save money. There is nothing you will learn at Bates that you cannot learn from reading free or inexpensive books and articles, or in MOOCs. The pedigree of the degree is only relevant in Boston or the northeast, and then will only help you get a job if you know someone. Think long and hard before you spend a quarter of a million dollars. Any startup will hire you, with a $100k investment in their company. You could spend 4 years at a startup with that investment, have more accomplishments, be more hireable, have more real skills, and save $160k. Do not waste your time and effort on a education model that has been outdated for over 20 years.

Alumnus Male -- Class 2000

Bates as an academic institution has to be up there in at the very least the top 50 schools in the nation. There is no questioning that the administration uses the tuition money to expand the oppertunities of its students by rigorously recruiting experienced professionals, providing students with resources, and maintaining a modern working and living environment.

With that said there is a downside to Bates which arises almost entirely as its position as a school for the rich. Many of the people at Bates are incredibly friendly, I can vouch for that because before I was a student here I actually was a truck driver who stalked the vending machines. With that said 90% of the student body is open, friendly and willing to help in anyway. Maybe even lay down in traffic for you. However the other 10% serve to contaminate the rest in all their self absorbtion. There are alot of snooty people here that otherwise shouldn't be. I mean I can understand when gorgeous women become self absorbed, but when average women start to act that way it irritates me. There are alot of what I would deem "hippy snobs" here, people from wealthy COUNTRY families, who are rich but have no clue as to the modern conveniences the gucci and prada provide.

Finally for god sake watch out for the surrounding community (Lewiston, Maine) which is in every way a "mini" South Bronx. Although the city has only 40,000 people the crime and violence here are every bit as nasty as that which occurs in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles. There is an inordinate amount of brutality for such a small community. Go into the center of town and its like your in Watts...liquor stores, gun shops, shop keepers are all from Somalia or Cambodia, and there are more pawn shops here than most countries have abroad.

Quite frequently you will here of a stabbing, or even a murder which in a big city is not a big deal but becomes ever more troubling when this news is continously surfacing out of a community of only 40,000 people.

Also 2 years ago one of the Bates students was actually stabbed to death in fight in the center of town. Thats right. The fight was largely his own fault, rich kid thoaght he could go run his mouth to the locals without any trouble. Problem is the locals are a a) poor white trash or b) angry Moslems so I guess in a way he got what was coming to him, aparently some white trailer park guy knifed him up and left him in a pool of blood to die while the ambulances came.

Although the fight was largely his fault it just goes to show you how dangerous this town really is. This was by no means an isolated incident, but it did recieve press here and nationally because it was a college student who died. However this town is dangerous and you better believe that, this coming from someone who has lived in the shady section of downtown Miami but I also lived in Lewiston itself as a child growin up in Maine...all the shit that goes down in the seedy parts of big cities hppens here...homelessness is rampant, crack is on the rise, brutality (i.e. assault and even murder) is a way of life.Come here for the education but please be advised to warn your children that while this is essentially a small "hick" town that doesn't mean that it is a town to be played with. Like I said I lived in Lewiston for a while growing up and some really sad and crazy things happens just minutes from the campus.

2nd Year Male -- Class 2007

Useful Schoolwork: A+, Surrounding City: F