There's quite a few things, good and bad, that can be said about the school. The campus is quite pretty and well integrated with the town. Many of the people living in dunedin have worked at the school or at least know someone who has. The school seems to put in effort to elevate maori voices and has student associations for various pacific island groups, but at the same time harbors some truly awful professors particularly in the school of medicine.

A minority of the students have a reputation for trashing the town and generally being entitled brats. Many rich kids from Auckland come to school here in order to party and generally be dickheads and the school does nothing to prevent this.