All good schools. What makes each uniquely great? Pitfalls?
The rep against Wesleyan is if you’re not into party favors (euphemism alert) or being politically vocal/active you might not fit it. Less preppy than the other on the list, great film program, cool alum, but not great on internships or job placement.
Vassar. Artsy. Some of the same reps as Wesleyan.
Middlebury. Remote, cold, tiny town, “preppy.” Great campus, endowment, language program.
Davidson. Great weather, lake, close to a city, Division I athletics. But close to nuke plant, grade deflation, preppy south.
The rap I hear repeated most often by current Wesleyan students is that its career services office devotes too much time prepping people for Wall Street jobs. Thanks to its reputation in the entertainment industry, 28% of all Wesleyan degrees conferred in the 2014-15 school year year were in either the visual or performing arts. The comparable figure for Middlebury is 6%; The arts give Wesleyan students things to do and places to go on weekends other than drinking alone in their rooms, and naturally, it’s the arts oriented students who feel they need the most career help. For the record, Wesleyan participates in the same recruitment drives as Middlebury, Amherst, Bowdoin, Colgate, Williams, and Swarthmore, among other top colleges:
On an overblown scale of 1 to 10 (1=Completely accurate, 10=Donald Trump style exaggeration, I’d give the internship thing a 5, meaning “true, but not for the reasons you think.”
The only reason to consider Davidson over any of the other schools on your list is if ONLY you expect to the live in the South after graduation. If instead you plan to live in the Northeast, Mid Atlantic or the West Coast then a Davidson degree will leave you disadvantaged compared to the other schools. Equally important is the social atmosphere, I am not very familiar with Davidson, but its likely to be more right-of-center leaning whereas the other schools are much more left-leaning with the typical array of stereotypes.
Career services is not useful for landing the top WallStreet jobs. It is good for accounting and engineering jobs. You need to build your own network for top jobs. S1 transferred from a school with a lame career services office to a school with a better network, but again career services didn’t contribute much. Search LinkedIn for the fates of alum. Midd is on Linkedin’s list of Wall Street feeders. However, I learned that it’s peers were good feeders too after cranking data.
Visited Wesleyan, Middlebury and Vassar. Fell in love with Vassar’s campus, new science center, mix of students and free curriculum. Not in the best town but NYC is not too far away.
This comment would appear to be gratuitously dismissive unless appreciated for its dry, minimalist – and therefore perhaps intentionally hyperbolic, humorous and false – evocation of a college of lonely alcoholics.
It’s true. Binge drinking and illicit drug use aren’t always indulged while alone in one’s room. It’s present at all colleges, including the ones that are the subject of this thread. I think the biggest difference between Middlebury and Wesleyan is that Midd leans heavily on hiking and other outdoor activities to relieve stress while Wesleyan relies more on live theater, dance and music concerts.
With so many people at Wesleyan involved in arts, how easy is it to meaningfully participate if you’re not a major? And if you are interested in film as a major or minor, how hard is it to get into the program – the school’s website suggests there’s more interest than capacity.
Similar question for any of the schools really.
I read recently that Midd banned energy drink sales on campus. Not sure what to make of that but does it suggest more activism in trying to address student excesses?
I think that potential problem was one of the motivating factors behind granting permission to minor in different subjects a few years ago. It should make it easier for those who want the certification to gain it without having to satisfy as many prerequisites as a major. You seldom hear many complaints of being shut out of dance and music courses. The most popular ones are given every year and seem to lend themselves to large lectures or other participation in large numbers. The main culprit is Film which attracts adherents from all over the world for its high level of teaching and alumni networking. It is now possible to fulfill a minor in Film with only six courses. The only thing I can spot that could possibly be problematic is the production course which (as far as I can tell) is still limited to majors: http://www.wesleyan.edu/filmstudies/minor/filmminor.html