Oberlin College

One college, one conservatory, one community. Infinite possibilities.

Oberlin College is a place of intense energy and creativity, built on a foundation of academic, artistic, and musical excellence. With a top-ranking liberal arts school, a world-class conservatory, and a first-rate art museum all on a single campus, it is the ideal place to study and design the world you want.

A passion for knowledge
A passion for knowledge drives an Oberlin education. We offer an expansive and rigorous academic environment with 40+ academic majors and more than 12 interdisciplinary minors and integrative concentrations. Explore your interests and discover new ones as you choose from over 1,000 lectures, seminars, and workshops offered on campus each year while working directly with accomplished and accessible faculty. At Oberlin, we believe learning happens best together—whether in scientific research laboratories, film and theater ensembles, or seminar discussions. Our commitment to interdisciplinary education goes hand in hand with our embrace of collaboration and the value of different perspectives and lived experiences for contending with new and daunting challenges.

Learning & Labor
It's not just our motto, it's our practice. Oberlin’s engaged liberal arts education extends outside the classroom and into the world. Through research, study away, winter term intensives, internships, and fellowships, students deepen their learning, applying the dynamism of intellectual inquiry to critical real-world experiences. From learning sustainable agriculture at local farms to interning in start-ups, museums, and nonprofits, our students combine idealism with pragmatism in pursuing opportunities that cultivate their talents and empower them to do good in the world.

A restlessness of innovation
As the first college to adopt a policy to admit Black students and grant undergraduate degrees to women in a co-ed program, we have championed critical work from the beginning that yields necessary progress, cultivating discoveries in music and art, innovation and ideas, and cultural practices and norms.

Find your people and your muse
With longstanding commitments to access, diversity, and inclusion, you'll always feel you belong here because we celebrate you just as you are without compromise. On campus, individual flourishing is a collective endeavor, and we believe it takes more than yourself to be yourself. The friendships and relationships Obies forge during their formative years on campus last a lifetime. These friendships begin on day one, often as part of peer advising cohorts and small first-year seminars. Every first-year student has a Peer Advising Leader (PAL), a returning student trained to help new Obies make lasting friendships and develop the skills needed to excel academically.

Faculty mentorship
Every Oberlin experience is a collaborative enterprise between students and faculty. Your faculty mentors are world-renowned scholars, artists, teachers, and citizens who will guide and push you. They are invested fully in your promise and your future, and they will challenge you to approach your education with a critical mind and a resilient heart.

Ready to launch
Every year since our founding in 1833, Oberlin has helped to cultivate compassionate, rigorous, pragmatic visionaries who go on to make an exceptional impact on the world. Our alumni include 23 National Academy of Sciences members, nine Pulitzer Prize winners, three Nobel Prize recipients, and countless award-winning artists. When our students graduate, they land in the most interesting places doing amazing, life-changing, creative work. Our alumni use their Oberlin educations to give the world more joy, hope, meaning, and justice—serving collectively as a global force for good. In every field, on every stage, Obies help people find the way forward.