I’m class of 2022 and was luckily accepted to both. I want to major in English and possibly minor in economics. Am an outdoorsy guy and love playing sports/soccer/ski/kayak, but also am looking for serious academic rigour and small classes. Cost is not a factor. I have already visited both and loved both of the campuses, though Middletown was a little depressing on the day. Any help narrowing down a choice between these 2 is highly appreciated. Thank you!
You’re the first Bowdoin cross-admit who hasn’t mentioned fresh caught lobster buffets, perhaps a good indication of the chow experience at Wesleyan’s Bon Apetit-run dining hall. With food and academics off the table, I would still give the edge to Bowdoin; Wesleyan gets its share of snow, but I have the distinct feeling that sledding down Foss Hill isn’t going to do it for you. 
You have two wonderful choices. Congratulations!
You can’t go wrong here, so choose by which “feels” better to you, based on your visits.
Both are top liberal arts colleges and will provide the academic rigor and small classes you crave— along with a tight community, close relationships with professors, lots of research opportunities, etc.— all the hallmarks of a top small liberal arts college.
Your academic interest areas are strong at both colleges, so that probably will not be a deciding factor. You can look at the online course catalogs to see if either has more classes that appeal to you.
Bowdoin- more charming town, prettier campus, closer proximity to the outdoor activities you enjoy (skiing and kayaking).
Wesleyan- vibrant campus community with somewhat of a liberal/artsy/hipster flavor to it (although all types of students are welcomed and represented on campus), a “hot” college right now with so many alumni making it big in theatre/TV/film, lighter course distribution requirements than Bowdoin, nearer to a major city (NYC).
Really, these are both fabulous colleges, with their similarities more pronounced than their differences. No harm in choosing by gut feeling!
Congratulations on two great choices! Have you gone to revisits or will you? To me, the biggest difference is in the student “vibe”, so maybe spending time with current students will help you decide. Bowdoin can sway preppy and Wes can sway artsy.
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Great choices. Congratulations. My D’s choices were mostly driven by recruiting, but Bowdoin was the one LAC she considered outside of that process - Bowdoin doesn’t have a varsity team in her sport, so that was normal admissions w/ no coach involvement. She really liked it, and Brunswick is super charming. It’s small, but Portand isn’t far, and Boston is reasonable.
I liked @TheGreyKing ‘s cut at it. I would add that, if you had any inkling of doing something in the hard sciences, I like Wesleyan over Bowdoin. If astronomy were an interest,Wes wins that one hands down. For your interests, Wes’ new home for its creative writing center is very nice, and Amy Bloom is on the faculty. I’m sure Bowdoin is very strong in English/writing too. I’m assuming econ is a wash between the two schools, but I defer to others who track that sort of thing more than I do.
Although D, again, really liked Bowdoin, I think she picks Wes, even athletics were not a factor. She just had that clarity and conviction you hope for when your kids have to make a choice. She grew up in an urban environment, so I’d guess that Middletown played a part in it. It certainly has parts of it that are more gritty than what you see in Brunswick, but it feels like it has more going on, and it also feels like it’s still on the upswing of a renewal cycle. Brunswick is a lot more cozy, but also limited.
One more plug for Wes: Main Street is a solid asset. It has a surprisingly large number of very good restaurants, and the whole area is very progressive with food allergies, etc. You also have West Hartford, which has a lot of great restaurants. Max Burger, in particular, is terrific.
It would be great if @wesleyan97 were surfing around currently; he’s the resident expert on these two schools, having attended both. He started at Bowdoin and transferred to Wes, from which he graduated. Maybe PM him.
Good luck.
@jgargery @GMC2918 @TheGreyKing @circuitrider thanks for your honest answers!!
@jgargery looks like @wesleyan97 hasn’t been active for a while, but i have shot him a PM. fingers crossed…
@jgargery @GMC2918 @TheGreyKing @circuitrider Do you have any idea if the film program at Bowdoin is vastly inferior to the famous Wes one? Film isn’t super important to me, but having a semi decent one would be nice.
@aroving while I don’t like to use words like “vastly inferior” when comparing anything about two such great schools, you’d be hard pressed to get even the most strident Wes detractor to argue that Wesleyan doesn’t win that particular category comparison. Wesleyan’s film school is well north of “semi-decent.” A quick search will tell you what you need to know about that; Wesleyan is very well known for film.
@aroving sorry misread your post. I got it now. I really have no idea about Bowdoin’s film program. I honestly didn’t know they had one.
@jgargery no worries, i phrased it poorly. I guess what I am saying is im also interested in screenwriting for film, so a decent film program would be nice. I am well aware of Wes’s famous film program, but if I were to choose Bowdoin I would also prefer a halfway decent cinema program. Thoigh for screenwriting, I am confident both schools’ strong creative writing faculty can cover that I assume.
@jgargery for me at the moment, I am leaning towards Bowdoin for the coastal Maine outdoor oppurtunties, though I do have an occasional streak of the “free spirited” and more “liberal out of box thinking” of the Wes students. Should I choose Bowdoin, do you think I can find a niche within the Bowdoin community who are less the “conventional” types and more than the Wes types?
I think you will find your niche at Bowdoin. There are many types of students at each college.
It depends on what your eventual goals are. Do people really write movie scripts for pleasure? If so, you can learn the basic structure and format of a movie script by buying books for that. If you are contemplating a swing at the spec script market, writing for film is a lot different than writing a short story for the New Yorker. You can’t just read it aloud to yourself and make changes until it “feels” right. You need cohorts, people wiling to take the two to three hours out of their day it takes to sit down and read a full length script and give you feed back. The more the better. Maybe those peep exist in quantity at Bowdoin. IDK.
The other alternative would be to produce the script yourself. Which brings us back to the importance of having a “half-way decent” film department.
Screenwriting schools are USC & Northwestern. Between Wesleyan & Bowdoin, I guess that Wesleyan would be better for screenwriting.
Didn’t know that about Northwestern.
And yet, Wesleyan seems to have produced a boatload of successful “I’ve hear of them” screenwriters and producers.
I just don’t know enough about the business to really weigh in here on whether good creative writing, alone, gets you there. A careful little look at Wesleyan’s College of Film, which includes several sub-departments, is critical here to make an informed decision. It is an academic program that punches well above its weight and is ostensibly very successful. The proof is in the output. I’m not confident about much here, but I’m confident enough to say that. as between Wes and Bowdoin for screenwriting, it’s not a guess: Wes just wins that contest going away.
I think you’ll find your people at either place. That’s not going to be a problem.
@circuitrider @jgargery @Publisher I guess I’m just hoping to do screenwriting for fun, not particularly looking for anything career-ish. So I don’t think in any way a deciding factor in my decision to attend Wes or Bowdoin. A glance at Bowdoin’s “Cinema Studies” program yields a few great professors who cross-teach languages and film who seem qualified to lecture film - i think that should be enough for my needs. Though I do think very highly of the outstanding slough of Wes grads in TV/film!
To paraphrase the late, great S.Z. Sakall in “Casablanca”: “You’ll be very happy at Bowdoin.” 
Congrats! 2 amazing choices. Regarding film-
One thing I recall from the Wes tour, is that there is a different movie/film playing on campus every day of the year. That sounded pretty cool
Note due to the popularity/success of the Wes Film major, they now seriously weed out many aspiring Film major students through very tough prerequisite courses. So unless you are really dedicated to study film, be aware that you will have to suffer through a large intro class where there are many other aspiring film major wannabees and they will weed you out. So in some respects if you just want to dabble and have fun taking Film, then Wes may not be the best place as its taken very seriously there and is on par with other grueling programs like CSS for instance.