Bowdoin College

Introduction

Bowdoin College  is a private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick. Founded in 1794, the college currently enrolls 1,839 students, and has been coeducational since 1971. Bowdoin offers 33 majors and four additional minors, and has a student–faculty ratio of 9:1.

Bowdoin is ranked as one of the top liberal arts colleges, and is tied with Pomona, Middlebury, and Wellesley as the fourth-best liberal arts college in the U.S. in the 2016 U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Bowdoin is located on the shores of Casco Bay and the Androscoggin River, 12 miles (19 km) north of Freeport, Maine, and 28 miles (45 km) north of Portland, Maine. In addition to its Brunswick campus, Bowdoin also owns a 118-acre (478,000 m²) coastal studies center on Orr's Island  and a 200-acre (809,000 m²) scientific field station on Kent Island  in the Bay of Fundy.

Applying

When applying to Bowdoin College, it's important to note the application deadline is January 1, and the early decision deadline is November 15. Scores for either the ACT or SAT test are due January 1. The application fee at Bowdoin College is $60. It is most selective, with an acceptance rate of 14.9 percent.

Bowdoin accepted 14.9% or 1,009 of the 6,790 applicants . Acorrding to U.S. News and World Report classifies Bowdoin as "most selective". Of enrolling students, 89% are in the top 10% of their high school graduating class.

Although Bowdoin does not require the SAT in admissions, all students must submit a score upon matriculation. The middle 50% SAT range for the verbal and math sections of the SAT is 660–750 and 660–750, respectively — numbers of only those submitting scores during the admissions process. The middle 50% ACT range is 30–33.

Academics

The Government & Legal Studies Department, whose prominent professors include Paul Franco and Richard E. Morgan, was ranked the top small college political science program in the world by researchers at the London School of Economics in 2003. Government & Legal Studies was the most popular major for every graduating class between 2000 and 2009. Other departments are also strong, including economics, the natural sciences, English, and Romance Languages. Course distribution requirements were abolished in the 1970s, but were reinstated by a faculty majority vote in 1981, as a result of an initiative by oral communication and film professor Barbara Kaster. She insisted that distribution requirements would ensure students a more well-rounded education in a diversity of fields and therefore present them with more career possibilities. The requirements of at least two courses in each of the categories of Natural Sciences/Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Humanities/Fine Arts, and Foreign Studies

(including languages) took effect for the Class of 1987 and have been gradually amended since then. Current requirements require one course each in: Natural Sciences, Quantitative Reasoning, Visual and Performing Arts, International Perspectives and Exploring Social Differences. A small writing-intensive course, called a First Year Seminar, is also required.

In 1990, the Bowdoin faculty voted to change the four-level grading system to the traditional A, B, C, D and F system. The previous system, consisting of high honors, honors, pass and fail, was devised primarily to de-emphasize the importance of grades and to reduce competition. In 2002, the faculty decided to change the grading system so that it incorporated plus and minus grades.

Other prominent Bowdoin faculty include (or have included): Edville Gerhardt Abbott, Charles Beitz, John Bisbee, Paul Chadbourne, Thomas Cornell, Kristen R. Ghodsee, Eddie Glaude, Joseph E. Johnson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Elliott Schwartz, and Scott Sehon.

School mission and unique qualities:

A liberal arts education at Bowdoin is not about being small and safe; it is about having the support to take surprising risks. That means caring more about the questions than giving the right answers, discovering you are good at something you did not think was your strength and making connections where none appear to exist. Bowdoin's curriculum offers a bold blueprint for liberal education designed to inspire students to become world citizens with acute sensitivity to the social and natural world. Its interdisciplinary focus encourages students to make connections among subjects, discover disciplines that excite their imaginations and develop keen skills for addressing the challenges of a changing world. Bowdoin students achieve at the highest levels but also lead balanced lives. Campus visitors frequently comment on how friendly everyone at Bowdoin is to visitors and how happy everyone seems at Bowdoin. This impression is supported by high retention, graduation and alumni giving rates. The connection to place is vitally important to the educational, social, service and recreational opportunities at Bowdoin. Maine is much more than the College's address. A Bowdoin education is best summed up by "The Offer of the College": To be at home in all lands and all ages; To count Nature a familiar acquaintance, And Art an intimate friend; To gain a standard for the appreciation of others' work, And the criticism of your own; To carry the keys of the world's library in your pocket, And feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake; To make hosts of friends ... Who are to be leaders in all walks of life; To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms, And cooperate with others for common ends. This is the offer of the college for the best four years of your life. --Adapted from the original "Offer of the College" by William DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College, 1885-1917.

Academic Life

The student-faculty ratio at Bowdoin College is 9:1, and the school has 69.8 percent of its classes with fewer than 20 students. The most popular majors at Bowdoin College include: Political Science and Government, General; Economics, General; Mathematics, General; Biology/Biological Sciences, General; and History, General. The average freshman retention rate, an indicator of student satisfaction, is 97.3 percent.

Student Life

Bowdoin College has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,805, with a gender distribution of 50 percent male students and 50 percent female students. At this school, 92 percent of the students live in college-owned, -operated, or -affiliated housing and 8 percent of students live off campus. Bowdoin College is part of the NCAA III athletic conference.

Campus Services

Bowdoin College offers a number of student services including nonremedial tutoring, women's center, placement service, day care, health service, and health insurance. Bowdoin College also offers campus safety and security services like 24-hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc). Of the students at Bowdoin College, 40 percent have cars on campus. Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age at Bowdoin College.

Facilities

•             Bowdoin's athletic facilities combine modern buildings with old traditions, and have been historically used as training grounds for Olympic athletes.

•             In addition to several outdoor athletic fields (Pickard fields & Whittier Field), the College's athletic facilities include:

•             Sidney J. Watson Arena, a modern Division III ice hockey arena with a 2,300 spectator capacity and LEED certification.

•             Buck Center for Health and Fitness, a $15.2 million LEED-certified facility with a 40-foot climbing wall and spaces for meditation, yoga, and tai chi classes.

•             Hubbard Grandstand and Whittier Field, a 9,000 spectator football field and additional six-lane all weather track renovated in 2005 by Nike corporation.

•             Leroy Greason Pool, which can accommodate up to 16 lanes of lap swimming.

•             Lubin Family Squash Center, which features seven squash courts with moveable sidewalls.

•             boathouses for sailing and rowing, several basketball courts, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, and several new athletic fields including a new astroturf field.

Summary

Bowdoin College is a private institution that was founded in 1794. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,805, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 207 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Bowdoin College's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Liberal Arts Colleges, 4. Its tuition and fees are $48,212 (2015-16).

Bowdoin College is located in the coastal New England town of Brunswick, Maine. The Bowdoin Polar Bears compete in 31 varsity sports in the NCAA Division III New England Small College Athletic Conference. Bowdoin has nearly 100 student organizations. One of the largest and most active groups is the Outing Club, which offers 100 excursions each year. Peucinian Society, founded in 1805, is one of the oldest literary and intellectual societies in the country, with alumni including poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Bowdoin abolished fraternities in 1997 and replaced them with a system of college-owned social houses. Freshmen are required to live on campus and are assigned to a college house that provides residential social activities.

Bowdoin was a men’s college until 1971, when the school admitted its first female students. It was also one of the first selective schools to make the SAT and ACT optional on its application in 1969. More than half of Bowdoin students study abroad for a semester through more than 100 affiliated academic programs. Notable alumni include former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Melville Weston Fuller, author Nathaniel Hawthorne, former U.S. President Franklin Pierce, and human sexuality and gender researcher Alfred Kinsey—subject of the 2004 biographical film bearing his surname.