Reply to Swarthmore/Wes VS Williams/Bowdoin

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid considered all of the colleges mentioned by OP.  My kid would have been a viable candidate for any of them (which of course was no guarantee of admission.)  In the end, my kid decided not to apply to any of them other than Wesleyan and ended up there.  The others lacked really strong student run arts/music/theater scenes, and there didn't seem to be as many people at the others who were marching (or playing or singing or dancing) to the beats of their own drummers.  My kid also preferred the size of Wesleyan. It has something like a thousand more students on campus than Amherst or Williams, which makes it feel a lot more diverse in terms to student interests.  This also makes it a little less selective.

Most Wesleyan students probably experience Wesleyan pretty much the way most NESCAC students experience their colleges.  Wesleyan has a lot of athletes and a lot of serious students who could have ended up at pretty much any of the other selective small colleges in the Northeast.  The main difference is that Wesleyan also attracts quite a few who would not have ended up on a NESCAC campus if Wesleyan had denied them admission.  Wesleyan has a different vibe as a result.

Another difference is Middletown.  It's big enough to feel like a very small city.  There are dozens of ethnic restaurants, breakfast spots, and other places for students to go, and it is very pleasant, but it isn't postcard beautiful at the level of Amherst or Williamstown.  It's more like Northampton but not quite as pretty and not quite as interesting.

Williams can confuse people who are into arts/music/theater because of its professional summer theater series. It's a wonderful professional theater series but it doesn't affect students much.   Williams does produce some incredibly successful alumni in artistic fields, but the scene on campus seems sleepy and Williamstown is a gorgeous but tiny town.

If you like Wesleyan because of its quirkiness or its arts scene, you also might do well to consider Vassar, Macalester, Oberlin, Carleton, Grinnell, Lawrence, Beloit, Kalamazoo, Whitman, Puget Sound, Lewis & Clark, Reed, the Claremont Colleges (especially Pomona, Pitzer and Scripps), and maybe even Amherst/Smith/Mt. Holyoke/Hampshire (if you don't mind cross registering at nearby colleges).  Some of the colleges on that list are more artsy.  Some are more academically intense.  Some are even more selective than Wesleyan.  Some are a lot less selective than Wesleyan.

By the way, quite a few people who like Wesleyan and like New England also consider Bates, Connecticut College, and Tufts.

[/quote]

I hear what you're saying, but a student (and parent) with their heart set on the schools that OP listed just isn't going to be happy settling for at least half the schools you just listed.  They just don't compare academically or prestige-wise, and let's be honest:  the schools on OP's list make clear that they care about both.[/quote]

I agree. I'll also note that the parent didn't mention the quirkiness or arts scene. I think a friendly vibe at a close-knit, academically rigorous school with strong Poly Sci/ Econ and History is Williams/ Bowdoin/ Hamilton more than Beloit/ Lewis & Clark/ Connecticut College.

As a matter of fact, the student might be interested in William & Mary, Davidson, Haverford. I can't speak to how close-knit the student body is (perhaps someone can chime in), but they excel in those academic areas. [/quote]

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