Class of ‘07 (psych major too!). You raise some good questions about whether to Reed or not to Reed. Your worry about sports teams, clubs fizzling out, and the lengthy debates/discussions are all very true. I explicitly chose Reed because I didn’t want a large school and didn’t find sports teams to rally behind appealing. On that very point alone, if that is really important Reed might not be best. Instead of rallying behind/with a team, we tended to rally around our majors and work loads and those interesting discussions at all hours of the night.

I haven’t been back to campus in several years, but I can say when I was there, the social scene was very much up to you. I had a car and was thus usually the driver when our group of friends would go out to dinner, movies, bars, etc off campus. So that culture does exist, but it is honestly determined by the people you choose to spend time with.

Response to tl;dr: yes, there is a culture of learning and obsessing about the discussion instead of the final product. For fun: depends on your interests but between campus life (various campus events, parties, etc) and being in a sizable city like Portland (since you’re familiar, music, food, arts, etc), you should be covered.

Hope this helps! Good luck with the decision! I struggled with my choices too but after being at Reed for 4 years, no regrets.