Why don't more kids want Wesleyan?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both pomona and wes aren't all that impressive when it comes to academic horsepower of their students

Pomona has 1766 undergrads
436 freshman
155 freshman submitted sat
only 116 have sat above 1500

Wes has 3805 undergrads
824 freshman
335 freshman submitted an sat
only 83 have above 1500

What about ACT?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't want my kids going to a college teh size of their high school. Too small.

At 316 acres, Wesleyan is fairly large, even compared to some other universities.

[Anonymous]

It’s a prep school off load.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan, Bates, Oberlin are lefty liberal woke havens.

+1. No thank you.

[Anonymous]

Wesleyan gets more than 1300 ED applications, same as Middlebury (and significantly more than Amherst or Williams), so I think the premise of the post is flawed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wesleyan, Bates, Oberlin are lefty liberal woke havens.

+1. No thank you.

Oh no!! Liberals who care about someone besides themselves!! Sounds like a terrible environment!

[Anonymous]

Not everyone want to go to a college the size of a high school.

Just as your intellectual capacity increases and you can see this progression: day cares tend to be very small, elementary a little bigger, middle schools much bigger and high schools are even more so. Why do you then suddenly want to be among less number of students?

[Anonymous]

I liked it for my kid, but the kid wanted to be closer to where we live. Otherwise it would have been a great fit, but a reach application wise.

[Anonymous]

SLAC are just another form of prestige chasing. No different than chasing US news rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously- I think it is one of the best schools out there, much better than the top LACs due to the sheer DIVERSITY of academics one can take part in- Along with the typical liberal arts subjects, Wesleyan allows study in the College of Letters/Social Science, Molecular Biophysics (the sole undergraduate liberal arts college to be designated a Molecular Biophysics Predoctoral Research Training Center), Design and Engineering Studies, Integrative Sciences, and a fully-equipped Science and Technology Studies program. It gives students both the option to graduate in 3 years of 5 years with an MA, has a writing dorm community known as Writer's Block, has an amazing Public Affairs Center with very active programming with students, is constructing a new massive science center rivaling Amherst College, a new integrative arts lab, and most importantly the president is very level-headed and improving faculty diversity of thought and campus speech invites.

It is a much larger LAC (~3000 undergrads), has faculty with phd level projects, and it overall is a much more dynamic and diverse lab than the ones being propped up. What's keeping it behind?

It's a good school among thousands. Numerous options out there.

No need to hype it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not everyone want to go to a college the size of a high school.

Just as your intellectual capacity increases and you can see this progression: day cares tend to be very small, elementary a little bigger, middle schools much bigger and high schools are even more so. Why do you then suddenly want to be among less number of students?

That progression is not about intellecutal capaicty -- its about economy of scale, particularly in public shcools. You don't have that size progression everywhere. The smllest school my kids attended was their high school -- literally half the number of students in the classroom compared to their preschool.

A small college provides a good intellectual environment for small class discussions, a close knit commmunity, and overall access to professors and research opportunities. At a big school, some kids will get that access, but the vast majority will not as there simply isn't enough time in the day or researchposiions available. Big schools have more course variety because they have more students schedules to fill (but you might not get the courses you want if htey are popular), more people to meet, and bigger parties.

Different people want different environments; some like big schools, some like small. It's OK. Both can be superior, both ca be terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't want my kids going to a college teh size of their high school. Too small.

then omg, stop responding to lac forums, gets a life, and go get your kid into Cmu or whatever. Stop wasting others time with useless opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Extremely liberal not even close to moderate. Not s great location and campus is below average. Loads of better options.

Name a peer of Wes that has all the things op talked about and more?

[Anonymous]

Love that all the haters here boil down to "hippy dippy!," "limited 1500+ SAT scores!," and "could have a nicer campus!" Basically everyone I know who went to Wes went there in part to avoid people who think that way--in order to be with people who are open-minded politically, don't see smarts as determined by a single test, and think putting more money toward professors and less toward shiny new buildings (though Wes is doing that) makes for a better school. Basically, as one of the first posters said, iykyk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Way way too liberal has been for over 50 years. No thanks!

It was probably more respectable when people could point to Democrats’ achievements & be proud of some of them. What are they going to point to now? “Gee, that Affordable health care isn’t really affordable”? “Golly, that open border thing turned out to be kind of unpopular”?