Bowdoin College

Overview

Bowdoin College is a nationally recognized college on the coast of Maine, home to roughly 2,000 students. Bowdoin represents an idea that if you give smart, kind young people access to one of the best educations on earth, they will use it to create good in the world. Students come from a wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and locations; they are thoughtful, curious, and willing to take risks. At Bowdoin, they collaborate across writing seminars, field research, and through eighty majors and minors to work hard towards the common good. And the Bowdoin community also does the hard work: constantly challenging themselves to be more inclusive and welcoming. Bowdoin adopted the first test-optional admissions policy in the country in 1969—and they’ve been striving to be creative, bold, and authentic in making the College more accessible ever since. Bowdoin is need blind, meets full calculated need of all admitted students with grants and need-based scholarships—not loans, and their all-encompassing support follows students through their entire college career.

Bowdoin's alumni network is distinguished, diverse, and fiercely loyal: they contribute hundreds of internships and job opportunities to Bowdoin students and graduates, in fields from law and finance to software engineering, media, and medicine. Bowdoin's campus in coastal Maine provides access to beaches, mountains, lakes and rivers, galleries, restaurants, and museums. Bowdoin's location is also a driving force in the teaching and study of the environment, with ocean-front research facilities at the Schiller Coastal Studies Center, and a biological field station on Kent Island. Their thriving hometown of Brunswick is accessible via Amtrak and is a half-hour drive or bus ride from Portland, Maine, and the Portland International Jetport.

Fun Fact: The founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, graduated from Bowdoin with a math major!

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