I am a rising high school senior and I am unsure about whether or not I would fit in at Wesleyan. On paper, it has a lot of the things that I like, but I’m worried about drug use. I’m the innocent one in my friend group, and since my social skills are more suited towards hanging out in a dorm with a few friends than smoking or going to a party, I’m worried that drugs are so common on campus that it would be hard to find similar people. Also, how interested in learning are people at Wesleyan? I want a college where people are excited to be there, to learn, and to discuss new ideas. Thanks for answering my questions!
The combination of freaks, nerds, jocks and poets that populate Wesleyan every year is probably one of the things that have earned it the nickname, “diversity university”. For such a small place it is amazingly difficult to pigeonhole. Your peep are there. It may just take a little time to find them. Freshman year is probably the last time you will have to worry about being stuck on a hall with people who smoke or drink to excess. After that, the housing choices become more flexible; you can choose suite mates; you’ll probably have access to a kitchen and, before you even know it, you will have become a full-fledged foodie. That’s pretty much the evolution of a large number of Wesleyan’s students, maybe a large plurality of them, over the space of their first couple of years… Others can chime in.
Drug use at Wesleyan is way overrated like it is at many other colleges. If you are not interested in drugs or alcohol you need not partake and there are going to be many other students who feel similarly. Last year when D1 was visiting schools, she did overnights at Wesleyan and 3 other NESCAC schools, 2 ivies and 1 small school in the outskirts of Philly. Staying over is by far the best way for you to judge how you may have to deal with exposure to drinking or drug culture at a specific school. At Wesleyan where D1 will be a frosh next month, she did two overnights and went to a couple of parties while visiting. She was never offered any drugs, nor did she see anything. Pot smoking was evident on a number of other schools where she stayed overnight and a study-hard/drink-hard environment was a super turn-off to her at the small school in Pa which she crossed off her list immediately after her over night visit…
I don’t have a kid there, but I have spent a lot of time there with two of my kids … one who is now at Middlebury (Wes and Midd were the finalists), and one of our dearest family friends has a daughter there now. That young woman (who is amazing on so many levels btw) is an athlete there who intends to major in physics and do the 3-2 with Columbia. She is a phenomenal student and accomplished rower who also has Type 1 diabetes. She is not a big party kid, she does not drink or do any kind of drugs. Her personality tends to be on the conservative/careful side (no doubt influenced, in part, on living life managing a chronic illness).
She is completely comfortable at Wes and reports that she’s having an even better time there than in high school. This is a kid who had choices in the school search … lots of them.
To me, if she’s ok there, then I think you will be too. The way you describe yourself is the way I (and I suspect her parents) would describe this young woman.