<p>Connecticut College is also on my daughter's list. Can anyone give some thoughts on it? We visited on a saturday and it seemed REALLY quiet...and there's almost never anything posted about it. We have heard about kids who are very happy there, and the school has good departments for my d's possible majors. As I mentionned earlier, my daughter is more artsy than preppy...thanks!</p>
<p>Connecticut College is a terrific school with exceptionally nice kids & faculty. Everyone seems rather happy there and its "artsy" bent attracts top students from around the country. Mom55's daughter could be very happy there. Also, Amtrak stops in New London and so it's just an hour+ to Boston or New York if you feel the need to go into a city. And as for visiting Connecticut College (or any college campus for that matter) on a Saturday morning: of course it's quiet. The kids just went to bed only a few hours earlier after a long Friday night celebrating the end of the school week -- or they're just welcoming the opportunity to "sleep in" instead of having to get up on just four hours sleep for class.</p>
<p>CollegeParent...love your description of Conn College and in particular, the reason for the lack of kids around on Sat. AM! ;-)</p>
<p>My D applied and got into Conn College which was her safety school but actually not typically what you would think of as a safety and that term is relative to each child. It is a VERY good school. We visited in junior year and my D liked it very much. I had applied there and got in when I was her age and it was funny to see this school come up on her list too. </p>
<p>The students are VERY friendly. I can't tell you how many times kids came up to US and asked if they could help us (we obviously did not go there). Kids we spoke to enjoyed the school alot. They mostly all have singles after freshman year. Yeah, arts are alive there. We met with many folks on our trip including the department head to my D's intended major (she spent an hour with us), the captains of a club team, and random kids my D approached. Kids were definitely about when we visited but this was on a weekday. </p>
<p>This school was smaller than my D's other schools, though she would have attended, that was not her ideal size. The only other "drawback" for her was that it was the only school on her list that was "isolated" or where you cannot walk to anything. New London is not exactly exciting but even if it were, you cannot walk from the campus to anything though they run vans into town. This is not important to all kids but she wanted a campus where she could walk to things to do off campus, having grown up in a rural area. As far as NYC and Boston, they are not quite as close as posted above, definitely further than one hour away, so I don't think kids are going to do that on a regular basis but it is surely available. </p>
<p>Conn College was appealing to my D even if not one of her favorites, she could see herself being happy there. I recommend the school. Sounds like a good fit for your D from what you shared Mom55 and it is not that easy to get into but easier than Tufts and Wesleyan. One of our top students in our senior class was not admitted to Conn College last year. It may be an easier "match" school for your D though. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>I'm sorry to say that we visited Wes yesterday and were unhappy with certain aspects. If we understood it all correctly: there's a minority house; a bi/gay/lesbian/transgendered house; a house for people creative in the arts (and it's voted on whether you can live there in your sophomore year), etc. These different houses, to us, seemed to be a way to fracture the community and undo the value of diversity. Unfortunately, D's interviewer agreed that this was a problem. Also, we came in the middle of something that's happening on campus that we didn't understand, but the college newspaper kept mentioning hate crimes and some reason that chalking has very recently been outlawed, and people who had wanted to chalk anonymously because they were afraid of "being attacked." I hope I'm not offending anyone, but this was all quite a shock to us after reading such wonderful things about Wes and wanting very much to love it.</p>
<p>As far as the housing you mentioned, these are program, specialty housing. Most students don't live in them. My D, a very active member of the communitiy, didn't live in a program house, nor did anyone she knew. So they exist, but they do not affect the choices of most students.</p>
<p>Chalking was a big issue last year. The campus bureaucracy would like the campus to be a bit more sedate, so they banned it. Of course, this just brought out the rebel in many students, so a non-issue became an issue.</p>
<p>My eclectic-minded, can't-be-pigeon-holed, daughter felt absolute warmth and acceptance here.</p>
<p>Different minority groups will assert themselves, and the queer community is very vocal, too. If a kid would be uncomfortable with that, Wes might be a problem, but if your child enjoys being challenged and asked to think in all kinds of ways, they'll be fine here.</p>
<p>Garland, thanks for the clarifications!</p>
<p>My S had the same experience as Garland's D. Wes students tend to be a bit more out there in terms of their activism than Tufts students. My S stayed in a substance-free dorm in his sophomore year, and lived in an apartment in his senior year. Other than the room in his apartment was the size of a closet, he had no problem with the housing arrangements. </p>
<p>I did think that the chalkings were intrusive and deliberately provocative. They were intended to raise hackles under the guise of educating other students about queer identity. They indeed raised the hackles of not only the administration, but also of well-known liberal profs. I think the issue at stake was balancing the right to freedom of speech against the right to freedom from that speech, the right to speak implying the right not to listen.</p>
<p>As in any community, this issue attracted quite a bit of coverage in the student paper but did not affect the majority of students. I agree with Garland that an intellectually inquisitive and open-minded student will enjoy Wes.</p>
<p>Mom55-
I saw that Vassar was on your list. I'd suggest you check it out. It has an EXCELLENT art and art history dept (my VC freshman roommate went on to get her MA and Ph.D in Art History at Yale and now teaches Art History at U Cal Davis). It's been coed for 34 years now (hard to believe!), has decent sports and is pretty liberal in its orientation. Poughkeepsie isn't the greatest college town, but New Haven and NYC arent that far away. Don't forget that Vassar participates in the 12 college exchange, so if your D. doesn't want to spend her jr yr abroad in Italy, she can go to Wesleyan, Smith, U. Conn and several others as well. Williams had put a temp. hold on their participation in the exchange at some point, but I don't know anything more about that, or if they're back participating fully.I think they are, but I am not sure.</p>