I live in New England and won’t be able to tour Whitman, and am concerned that the school is too isolated. Is the town fun? Do students get bored? How easy is it to travel to Portland or Seattle? I’m transferring from a school in Boston, and am concerned that I’ll be stuck in the middle of nowhere all the way across the country. While I don’t like city life for college, I also don’t want to feel stranded.
Any help would be amazing!!!
I am visiting this weekend as an accepted transfer, and there are like three flights every day to Seattle. I’m currently waiting in the airport to catch my flight there, I’ll let you know how it goes! Everyone seems to know walla walla though that I’ve talked to on planes
Ah thank you! I’d love it hear about it - it seems like a great school!!
I just posted this in another thread.
Everyone always worries about how isolated Whitman is. There is an airport in town; it takes maybe 15 minutes to drive from campus to the airport. There aren’t hourly flights, but there are several daily flights to Seattle, for example. The airport in the Tri-Cities (Pasco, Kennewick, Richland) offers even more choices. There is bus service from the Tri-Cities to Walla Walla, and of course lots of students share rides.
Walla Walla is a great small city. It has some very good restaurants, lots of wineries, beautiful parks, an old-fashioned walkable Main Street, all within easy walking distance of Whitman. Students can also walk to Starbucks, Macy’s, Safeway (grocery store), Goodwill, churches, the public library, etc. But there is so much going on on campus, many students look up one day and realize that it has been days since they have left campus. The college brings in plenty of musical groups, visiting scholars, guest speakers, etc.
I hate to see Whitman dismissed because it is so “rural.” It’s not in the middle of cow country or even wheat fields. It’s in a lovely neighborhood in a small city that serves as a commercial center for a fairly large area.
Hey! I’ve been here all weekend and absolutely love it here. The town is small but super cute, it’s surrounded by beautiful hills, and it’s got an airport really close to campus. It’s definitely tied for number one on my transfer lists after visiting!
Whitman students (including my son) tend to love Whitman and make great friends there. There is a ton to do on campus, and the students just really like working and spending time together. The town–as noted above–is small but charming, and students work at/hang out at the cafes and restaurants. I will warn you, though, that when you are approaching Walla Walla from any direction, you’ll spend some time traveling through what feels like the middle of nowhere. Then you arrive, you meet people, you get involved, and before long you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else!
@rejnel, that is such a great description, I really hadn’t thought of it that way. First few times we visited Whitman, we flew into Walla Walla from Seattle, so we experienced the town and the school without having a long drive. We had to spend a couple of hours at SEATAC to change planes, but that wasn’t any hardship. It was a pretty easy trip flying, in fact, if booked ahead it isn’t all that expensive when you consider car rental and gas for driving. When we later drove, we were relaxed and excited about our destination, so we sat back and enjoyed the countryside and the small towns. Thanks for that.
Whether some place is “too remote” is purely a subjective matter. For many, many students, it is and in our experience it is often a deciding factor for kids who would otherwise want to to go to school there.
No matter how much sugar is sprinkled over it here by some of the more enthusiastic parents, I’ll tell you that it is isolated in any general sense of the use of that word. The town is cute, there are some nice parts to it, and that’s all good, but it is a small town in a sea of nothing … much like Grinnell, IMO.
That said, a lot of kids like it. In my view, a kid needs to be happy on campus … road trips are going to be an ordeal, and no, road tripping to Pasco won’t fix the problem, if there be one.
I’m not picking on Whitman. I have a kid at Middlebury, a school I like a lot. Ask me about Middlebury. Ask me if it’s easy to get to. Ask me if it’s isolated and rural. Ask me if the winters are very long. Ask me if it’s for everybody. I’ll give you a straight answer, not the Chamber of Commerce line, which is what you get from a lot of parents on this board.
Middlebury is a GREAT school, congratulations on having two sons accepted there! You’ve commented that one of them decided to transfer out because of the location. It would be helpful to know what his experience was, so I AM asking you about Middlebury, what made him decide to leave?
BTW, the people who post here are relating their own experiences, so there really isn’t any reason for you to dismiss their opinions as any less valid than yours.
Two things: one, he and the coach turned out to be a bad match; and two, the isolation. Regarding the latter, the winters were too long for him and road trips to Burlington didn’t help enough I guess. Sibling loves it, but sibling likes the countryside and found Middlebury itself to be enough. The transfer is at Pomona now, no longer plays his sport, and is happy as a clam. Sometimes I question why, given that Pomona is Pomona, but it is a mere 35 miles from LA. Remember, this was a 19-year old kid. Sometimes they just get an angle on something and that’s it. I think he saw his sib flourishing there, both athletically and academically, and his visits tended to be during good weather and during busy times around the college. When things got more into a routine and cold, I think it became a different place for him. If he had been able to continue expressing himself athletically maybe it would have been different. I really don’t know. Like I said, kids do what they do sometimes.
As to your other comment, listen, I don’t intend to revisit that back and forth thing we had a couple of months ago. There are two comments in this thread that make both my position and intent on this subject clear.
My only issue, and motivation for jumping in, is that I know what I’m talking about here, and I think some of the posts, while probably well intentioned, border on changing the facts and are thus misleading. I didn’t just visit this place one time and am bashing based on a bad day. I’m from Washington, I live in Seattle, I know tons of Whitties, I know Walla Walla, I’ve made that drive (at least to Pasco for soccer) at least 100 times and I’ve talked to many, many people considering or attending Whitman and who have compared its location to other schools. It’s one thing for you and others to answer questions by saying something like, “hey, you know what? it’s not really that bad. sure, it’s way out there, and be warned, it’s not near anything much other than the tri cities [and then go on to explain what the tri-cities are and are not], but the town is pretty cool and the campus is full of activity.” That’s one thing, and I’d actually agree.
But then you have posts like this guy’s:
“I hate to see Whitman dismissed because it is so “rural.” It’s not in the middle of cow country or even wheat fields. It’s in a lovely neighborhood in a small city that serves as a commercial center for a fairly large area.”
That is plainly inaccurate and in a sense misleading. He says Whitman is in a neighborhood. Well, no kidding - most schools are located some kind of neighborhood or town. No college I know of is actually on an actual farm. It’s in Walla Walla, a nice, but small, town, and Walla Walla, itself, is what’s in the middle of nowhere. Southeastern WA is, by definition, the middle of nowhere. The tri-cities are strip malls and sprawl and nothing much else spread over miles and miles.
If Whitman isn’t rural, then there is no rural. It’s the surrounding areas that define what’s considered rural and not.
Btw, I think “the middle of nowhere” there is beautiful. But that is besides the point.
Really looking forward to seeing Whitman soon with D18 as she starts her college search with a swing through the PNW. I can relate very well to your description of Middlebury @MiddleburyDad2 since D16 just finished her first year there. She loves the mountainous location and the rural/isolated feel doesn’t phase her one bit. In fact she is thriving in that environment. But D18 is a different creature for sure and I am curious how she will receive the different types of schools we will be visiting. Only time will tell!
@lr4550 , if D18 doesn’t like rural LACs, then Whitman won’t be a hit. If that’s not an issue, Whitman is a wonderful school full of very brights kids. The campus itself is nice too.
Two points: one, I am female, though you couldn’t know that. Two: I have some experience with Whitman and Walla Walla. I am a Whitman alumna; I spent four years in Walla Walla, in school and working in a local business and one summer in the vegetable cannery in Milton-Freewater. I currently have two children who are students there. And I am a 4th-generation Seattle native.
So I–and my children, and others on this board–do have an opinion grounded in actual experience, even if it differs from yours.
Seriously, though, we all get that you think we overrate W2. Perhaps, though, you would do us the courtesy of not continually discounting our positive experiences?
Students interested in Whitman, please visit (during the school year) and talk to actual students. It might not be the right fit for you, but it might be a place you love!
@KnearSeattle , your post, though ostensibly intended to respond to mine, has little or nothing to do with anything I’ve written.
I’m 100% consistent with your last sentence, and candidly, I’ve lost interest in debating this any further with you and your friend or whatever. My forehead is bleeding.
Nice school, smart kids, nice campus, great results, small but cute town, 5+ hours from Seattle and relatively isolated from anything else and surrounded by the very definition of ‘rural’. That’s it. Simple. Nothing more said or implied about good experiences, or whether anyone should or should not visit or apply or attend.
I mean, honestly, even a crazy person isn’t going to try and “take away” your good times. Good grief.
And then, by happenstance, as I was perusing articles in the Whitman Pioneer looking for a piece written by a friend’s son, who is on the staff, I happened upon this little piece:
http://whitmanpioneer.com/humor-page/2016/02/11/whitties-helping-whitties-get-laid/
And the opening line, in relevant part, written by a student there, is:
“Due to the fact that Whitman College is scenically located smack-dab in the middle of God-****-nowhere, the students here often struggle with finding …”
The rest doesn’t matter.
So if you and/or anyone else are still struggling with my description of Whitman’s geographical location, I suggest you take it up with the kids there from here on out. I’m sure they’d love to share their views.
You only forgot stupendous wine. I like Whitman and Walla Walla but someone pretending it’s not in the boondocks is working way too hard.
@fragbot bingo.
Yes - I was remiss in failing to mention the wine.
no
Although it’s true that Walla Walla can be characterized as being in the boonies, I think there are some distinctions that make Whitman less isolated than either Grinnell or Middlebury, two schools that Whitman has been compared to for remoteness. For one thing, the Walla Walla airport has three Alaska Airlines flights per day to and from Seattle and is located 15 minutes from campus. Neither of the towns of Grinnell or Middlebury has commercial airline service.
Grinnell, IA has a population of 9,069 and Middlebury, VT has 6,588 people, while Walla Walla has 31,910. Walla Walla is nearly 5 times the size of Middlebury, and that larger size translates into the presence of things that Whitman students like having access to, like the movie theater that has 12 screens and shows first run movies. There are large grocery stores as well as small health food markets. There is a Target, a Macys, an Office Depot, a Panda Express and a Starbucks. There are excellent places to eat for every budget. Students find most things they need within the city limits. And, yes there is wine.
This is a follow up to my post #10 upstream. Recently finished our PNW trip to Whitman, Lewis & Clark, Willamette and Puget Sound with D18. She loved Whitman, we had a great tour and were lucky to have the dean of admissions for the information session. Talk about someone who can sell the school well! He catered to the questions and interests of the visiting students (it was a small group) instead of giving a programatic “overview” so the session felt very personal. She loved what she saw on campus. It was too bad the students weren’t in school yet but she’ll likely go back in the spring or next fall to take a closer look etc.
Regarding location, Walla Walla is of course a lovely large town with lots to do. And, at the same time, it felt undeniably regionally isolated. that’s fine that it has it’s own airport but on weekends for college kids it’s a commitment to get to the mountains. It’s far away from a real city (specifically an urban cultural hub such as Portland) as the drive was a solid 4 hours. But that isn’t a problem for D18, at least not yet, she was neither here nor there about the location. Not ideal and yet certainly not a deal breaker. She liked the school, liked Walla Walla, and it won’t surprise me if Whitman winds up on her short list even after she visits another 10+ schools. We were impressed!