<p>Wow - never hearad of drum circles before! I will watch the youtube videos with great interest. I will pose the question to my S (he is now in London visiting IWU friends at Goldsmith and Oxford but will be home this weekend). He would know - he's a drummer himself. And if not, I have a feeling they'd go over well.</p>
<p>bay, is your s in blackstock? I saw this on the website. It said it was for u classmen. It looks real nice. Do you know how to get into this or the other small halls?</p>
<p>Yes, he is in Blackstock. It's for sophs and up. In order to get in, he needed to get a group together and sign up for one of the rooms. They get an assigned time for choosing rooms which I think is based on seniority. It was pretty easy to do.</p>
<p>idic5, it must be decision time in your household. Is it IWU or LU?!</p>
<p>idic5, there is no drum circle in IWU although there have been two performances of African drummers this year. Students, however, are encouraged to create their own club if one is not available. The Swing Dance club, for example, started early this year.</p>
<p>I'm an IWU alum (from a little while back), theater major, non Greek, IL native but non Chicago non affluent. It was a great place, and I think it has only gotten better with time. My dorm was surrounded by sorority houses, but there was co-mingling and never any Greek/anti-Greek hostility. I remember attending parties there and even spent a between spring/summer term break living with a friend in her sorority house. Although many of the student came from the Chicago area, not all were from affluent suburbs. </p>
<p>It was and is very much a live-and-let-live atmosphere. Different backgrounds/interests/goals are greated with curiosity.</p>
<p>thanks, tango, for the contribution. what may have prompted some of tango's stmt was this stmt from Princeton Review, which was quoted above:</p>
<p>
[quote]
What Illinois Wesleyan Students Say About...</p>
<p>Student Body
IWU draws heavily from the affluent suburbs of Chicago
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I believe PR uses vol data responses to get some of its info it reports in its guide, such as this stmt. I am not sure how they choose to put in which quotes in the 'What IWU students say' section. This is probably not the most reliable way of getting info on a school, but it is another source one can use, along with CC - and Tango's equally valid stmt.</p>
<p>another piece of data to possibly give a better sense of the schools at a summary level,</p>
<p>from USNR 2008 guidebook, pct determined to have financial need
IWU: 56 pct
LU: 66 pct</p>
<p>to answer chi's question above, the idic5 household chose LU - reluctantly and with much difficulty to be very honest. There were different views on the matter between h,w, and d. Dollars were a big factor. I guess you cd say that, in our case, IWU did not seem to want to put money where their mouth was. They said they liked d and wanted her, but...</p>
<p>Well, idic, at least you have a decision, so you should be sleeping better now! And it was a choice between 2 good schools (from everything I can garner about them).</p>
<p>Oh, idic5, it's never easy, is it? But I am sure she will love Lawrence -- it's a really good school.</p>
<p>We, d, and w, saw an adaptation of The Giver today. It has themes apropos to what we have been talking about, the subject of (the burden of ) choice, and of mitigating risk and pain in choices. It showed how kids in this society during the ceremony are given their life jobs by the elders.</p>
<p>I was burdened by the knowledge of the importance of this decision, since any event, even the beating of butterfly's wings, can have great affects in the universe. A friend gave me some perspective of this 'butterfly effect', or chaos theory, and counseled me that the point of the chaos theory is that events are UNPREDICTABLE, so ride easy on the wave, and see, as the blind man says.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3. We really have to protect people from wrong choices.
Explanation for Quotation #3</p>
<p>SparkNotes:</a> The Giver: Important Quotations Explained
[/quote]
</p>
<p>With all the talk of drum circles and IWU, I would think someone would have mentioned the movie “The Visitor,” starring Richard Jenkins '69, who was nominated for Best Actor: [The</a> Visitor | Official Movie Site](<a href=“http://www.thevisitorfilm.com%5DThe”>http://www.thevisitorfilm.com)</p>
<p>I might not have seen it myself had we not been familiar with Richard Jenkins as a long-time stage actor here in Rhode Island.</p>
<p>There’s a student from our town at IWU. We plan on visiting for my son when the time is right. Lawrence is also on our list, so this is an interesting thread for me.</p>
<p>I recommend the movie - it was a surprise treat when I saw it. IWU is a great (albeit low profile) little school, TrumpetDad. It was in my d’s final 2.</p>
<p>My D will start at IWU this fall – BFA acting major with a strong interest in music, literature, and study abroad. As an acting major, she was attracted by the stronger academics and a decent amount of room for liberal arts curriculum. She liked the smaller student body/campus, loved the library – just felt comfortable there. She also likes the 4-4-1 academic schedule – which may allow her the opportunity for the study abroad even while doing a BFA. After re-reading this thread, I am excited for her because I think it will be a great fit. And by the way, while we are mentioning famous alumni like Richard Jenkins, a current MT student is performing on So You Think You Can Dance – Evan Kasprzak. Vote for Evan if you aren’t doing so already.</p>
<p>IMHopeful, I believe the IWU student from our town is there as a theatre-related major. I don’t know him, but I believe my daughter knows of him. What they have there that’s theatre-related looks pretty impressive, now that I look at that portion of their web site. Congratulations, and best of luck to you and your daughter!</p>
<p>Another famous alum and current honorary trustee, soprano Dawn Upshaw '82, teaches at Bard, which my wife and I will be visiting in a couple of weeks while my son is at a nearby jazz camp.</p>
<p>Thanks! I hadn’t heard of IWU until my daughter started looking for BFA acting programs. I’m hoping (IMHopeful afterall!) that it turns out in reality as good as it looks. It seems like a hidden gem.</p>
<p>We live in Bloomington, and as much as I would like our son to ‘go away to college’, after his second visit there last week IWU is looking like it might be a good option. Lawrence has come up as well as Oberlin but we have not visited either one.</p>
<p>I hear they have an avid men’s basketball following at IWU, something that can be hard to find in a D3 school.</p>
<p>My son and I like to go to Providence College games, a D1 Big East school. He’d prefer to attend a smaller college, but worries that the basketball games won’t be anywhere near as good.</p>
<p>In addition to the IWU games, you’ve also got Illinois St. right down the street, whose team is about the caliber of a Providence. I wonder if IWU students can get into Illinois St. games with some sort of student discount??</p>
<p>This all might sound trivial to some, but when you live in a northern climate, I find college basketball can help cure cabin fever.</p>
<p>On a related topic, I was very impressed with the athletic facilities at IWU. My D starting at IWU this fall isn’t much of a sports person, but the rest of the family is pretty much obsessed. The facilities were better than what we saw at any other comparable school by a long shot, and rivaled the facilities at many of the larger schools we visited. I don’t know how the sports programs do competitively, but they certainly seem to be well equipped.</p>
<p>D1 is a sophomore majoring in English at IWU. Is involved with theater as well. She loves the campus and atmoshere. Football and basketball draw the biggest crowds. The Womens BBall team was one of the top ranked in D3. A quick bus ride gets you to ISU’s games. I am not aware of a student discount for ISU games, but I may be wrong. There is a lot of individual attention and the students seem to know the staff well. There are many new buildings and in fact a new music theater has been financed and is on the drawing board.</p>