I will be a hs senior next year and am very interested in Wesleyan. Any opinions about its strengths and weaknesses will be greatly appreciated. I know it has a very liberal student body, is strong in the sciences and is in the middle of nowhere in Ohio…anything beyond that will help.
<p>what are you interested in studiying? can only tell you that the art program, profs and facilities are outstanding - by far the best facilities we saw in our search last yr. for our D.</p>
<p>Possibly English Lit. Could you tell me a bit more about the arts facilities? Fine Arts may be an option for me. What was your overall opinion of the campus and the students?</p>
<p>English dept is probably the strongest apart from the sciences from what I could tell--very large, unusually large for a liberal arts college and all very active in publishing and writing. </p>
<p>I agree with beachy. OWU has invested a lot in its fine arts facilities. Seems the university is on the upswing both financially and in selectivity. Some students were not happy with the condition of the residence halls, though.</p>
<p>We toured OWU last spring with our D. She really didn't care for the campus layout much - think of a dumbell with academic bldgs. at the one end and residence halls/frat houses at the other, with student union, performing arts center and some other smaller things along the thin middle. The campus is pretty much surrounded by the town of Delaware and cannot expand much. The town itself is quite small and our D ended up being more interested in a larger city campus. Delaware is only about 20 miles north of Columbus and all that it offers, but that looks like a very long distance when you know you won't have a car on campus!</p>
<p>So she was mentally preparing to write OWU off until our afternoon appt. with the head of the fine arts dept. He spent 2.5 hrs. with us, chatting, looking at her portfolio, answering questions, and then took us on a guided tour of their facilities. They recently rehabbed what looks like an old 4-story factory at the edge of campus where it meets the downtown blocks. It is now a superb facility with well-lit studios, gallery spaces, offices, amazing darkroom facilities, press areas, a great Mac lab and more. There is a separate prefab metal barnlike bldg. a short walk away with larger spaces for sculpture, kiln firings, etc. Looks like a huge investment of capital in recent years to do this for something like only about 100 art majors at any given time. Our D was very impressed - we thought these were the best facilities we had seen in visiting about 10 schools - small ones like OWU up to several large universities - with her.</p>
<p>Students seemed quite friendly - we had lunch with a couple of them from the admissions office, so they may have been giving us the standard pep talk. We know of one girl from our area who goes there and just loves it. But then we know of another who was very unhappy and transferred out.</p>
<p>thanks! very helpful! were you looking at other LACs at that time?</p>
<p>ohhh - she had a real mix going for awhile - small LACs along the lines of OWU all the way up to OSU and its 48,000 or so enrollment!</p>
<p>Hi beachy,</p>
<p>Just curious. How was their science center? The pictures that they have on their website look impressive but I was curious what you thought about the science facilities when you visited.</p>
<p>As I recall, the science center had only been open a few months - perhaps the fall before we visited? Since D and the other 2 prospectives on the tour were not interested in the sciences as a major, we didn't spend a lot of time there, but walked through the common spaces on first floor and got to peek in a lab.....spacious and bright, a few students working on a project - seemed to be moving along fine, not wishing for any equipment or supplies they were missing....all in all it looked quite well-equipped and easy to move around in (to my very NON-science-oriented mind, at least!)</p>