<p>Although I know this is really hard to do, I was wondering if you guys could think of a good comparison school to Wesleyan based on selectivity that most hs seniors would know of...</p>
<p>I told people I got into Wesleyan and they keep asking how hard it is to get into. I couldn't really come up with a school that's comparable that most people have heard of.</p>
<p>It's hard to say (for most LACs) because the people that apply to them are a very self-selected group to begin with. Wesleyan is not a household name, so you don't have everyone in the world applying like you do at Harvard. So, the percentage admitted doesn't really reflect selectivity when comparing such different schools. (Not to say that Wesleyan is as selective as Harvard, obviously).</p>
<p>Aaanyway.
Princeton Review, while pretty much total crap, gives Wesleyan a "selectivity rating" of 97, with the highest being 99. NYU is 96, Cornell is 98. Those are pretty household names that hs seniors would know.</p>
<p>But I'd advise you to try and come to terms with the fact that few people outside of academia will have heard of Wesleyan or be impressed by it...</p>
<p>lol It's just hard to talk about college with people when they have no clue about the school you want to go to! </p>
<p>thanks for the reply, btw</p>
<p>Selectivity rates can be somewhat misleading and vary year to year, but schools roughly comparable are Tufts, Barnard, Haverford, U Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, Vassar, Washington & Lee, Emory.</p>
<p>I know exactly what you mean, Dukie. A girl at my school, who is co-president of a club with me, got into Yale, and she is constantly being hugged and congratulated by everyone. People say things like, "I can't believe I know someone who's going to Yale!". Even the school principal came in during our club meeting to personally congratulate her (while I waited on the sidelines, of course). When I tell people where I'm going, they usually haven't heard of it, ask if it was my first choice, and then when I say it was, they say "oh, well congrats then".
It's all part of going to a school like Wesleyan though. I don't think it would have the same character if it were a household name.</p>
<p>haha, i didn't really choose wesleyan because of the name. I chose it for the academics and environment, and because i'm trying to get a complete change of scenery from where i live now, it doesn't really bother me when no one has heard of Wesleyan.</p>
<p>People who know colleges know Wes. And people who don't know colleges . . . well, they don't know colleges.</p>
<p>Don't worry too much about what people think. My family and friends live in South Korea and they've only heard of Harvard, MIT, Yale,... etc. I don't even bother to explain anymore. As long as I am happy with the choice I am making, who cares? lol</p>
<p>There's another Wesleyan in my town, so when I was telling people I got into Wes, they were like, "So you like being close to home?" and I said, "Well if you call 1000 miles away close to home... yes."</p>
<p>I'm applying to Tufts and Barnard :p And to a poster above, I really don't think NYU and Wes are anywhere comparable. NYU CAS is much easier to get into, IMO. Perhaps Middlebury? Swarthmore?</p>
<p>Tell your friend that this one kid I know got rejected from Wesleyan but got into Princeton. If you care about impressing that friend, he'd ought to be impressed by that... unless he claims it's Tufts Syndrome or whatever (which is wrong considering Wes does early writes).</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure if someone hasn't heard of Wesleyan, then they haven't heard of Tufts or Tufts Syndrome haha... every time someone brings up Tufts Syndrome, I feel a bit bad for the Jumbos out there:)</p>
<p>actually, I think the acceptance rate for Wes is fairly similar to Cornell... so maybe use that as a comparison school? People will have heard of it, and if I remember correctly, Wes and Cornell's admit % are within a few points of one another...</p>
<p>I don't know why, but when I was applying back in 2006/2007, I heard something to the effect of, "Wesleyan is the Cornell of Liberal Arts Colleges," though I'm not sure what that means. If we're talking selectivity, Wesleyan is definitely not the easiest to get into out of the Liberal Arts Colleges. If we're talking selectivity in terms of percentage (and not numbers), I could see that. If we're talking student body, ehh, not so much...</p>
<p>It's true that a lot of people won't have heard about Wesleyan. But I'm applying to jobs now, and let me tell you, the people who matter - potential employers, grad schools - know Wesleyan and know it's good. When I've interviewed at jobs, they've been impressed by my school. Sure, it's not going to get the same reactions saying you go to Harvard does, but it's certainly not going to close any doors.</p>
<p>But I would say that Tufts is a good example of a school with comparable selectivity. Tufts, Johns Hopkins, Vassar, Middlebury, Cornell, etc. (Though we're extremely different from a lot of those schools - don't even get me started on how different Wesleyan and Cornell are)</p>
<p>To generalize (though stats aren't everything), I'd say Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst are a little more selective than Wesleyan and schools like Conn College, Smith, Trinity are a little less selective than Wesleyan.</p>
<p>Disagree. I'm in Hollywood and out here, Wesleyan is huge.</p>
<p>^ Wow, that's cool, lol. In Central Jersey, no one's heard of it.</p>
<p>Kids in my class were complaining about Wesleyan "begging them to apply." I told them to shut up and check out Wes' stats, told them I was applying, and inferred that they probably wouldn't get in anyway. I then explained the idea of yield and why Wes wants them to apply - so Wes can easily reject them.</p>
<p>Sounds mean, but I hate when people put down anything (not only schools, people too obviously) without knowing anything about them. One of my biggest pet peeves... grr!</p>
<p>According to this Journal of Blacks in Higher Education survey of the Class of 2010, the only top LACs more selective among African-Americans seemed to be women's colleges (Bryn Mawr, Barnard, Mount Holyoke) Colgate and southern schools (Davidson, Washington & Lee):
The</a> Progress of Black Student Enrollments at the Nation’s Highest-Ranked Colleges and Universities</p>
<p>I just realized that I misspelled comparative and that it doesn't really make sense in the title! O_o lol</p>