<p>Quoted in USA Today 2/13/06, numbers for this year appear to be a record:</p>
<p>If only I were born 10 years ago... or even three. :(</p>
<p>Effulgent: supposing the trend continues until 5 years after, you'd be glad you're applying to colleges now ;)</p>
<p>It won't. Generation X had very few children, so expect college admissions rates to rise a little in 5 or 10 years.</p>
<p>My son was accepted ED 1 to Wesleyan. I see that some other colleges have shown the actual number of applications received etc. Just curious how many applied to Wesleyan this year and how many were offrered admission ?</p>
<p>Dean Meishlaun, who was recruited from Cornell, appears to prefer playing her cards close to her chest, more so so than did her immediate predecessors. If past years are any indication we may not get a final break down of numbers until way past the summer melt period.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the rumor, from highly reliable sources within the adcom office is that RD numbers will top 7,000 (for 750 places) and that most of the increase will have come from internationals.</p>
<p>Actually, I've found that Nancy Meislahn is one of the few admin people at Wesleyan who IS willing to discuss the internal operations of her office (try getting Peter "Dick Cheney to Bennet's Bush" Patton to tell you how they came up with some policy).</p>
<p>The thing is, most colleges end up disseminating their admissions numbers via the campus newspaper. The Argus just isn't interested in asking for the information though. I know this as I am on the editorial board - it's just not on their radar. They usually get around to publishing (fairly incomplete) numbers in the WesFest issue or the following year's orientation issue. Whether this says something about the student body as a whole, or just about the people who run the Argus, I do not know.</p>
<p>xmatt</p>
<p>I like to read the campus newspapers at the various schools I will be applying to next year. It's a great way to get to know the real feel of a school. Unfortunately I have noticed that The Argus online does not include the opinion sections which sometimes is the most interesting part of a college paper. Why is that? Dana</p>
<p>The Argus online does include the opinion section - which you will notice has very few articles. The reason for this is that it's separate from the Wespeaks section, which is an active student forum... similar to letters to the editor, students submit anything they're concerned about or want to alert to students' attention, and it's printed with extremely limited censorship. A February 24 Wespeak by Evan Carp (<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2748%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2748</a>) aroused a great deal of controversy (though mostly one-sided) and caused another 28 Wespeaks in response. It was talked about in cafeterias and club meetings and, I hear, even prompted a discussion in one of my friend's classes.</p>
<p>When I was looking at schools, I also compared a lot of schools by their newspapers, and the Argus really impressed me because it seemed so geared towards the students... it's pretty actively read by the student body.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, I can't just link you to the Opinion page, because it changes for each issue, but for the most recent issue it can be located at <a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/section.php?section_id=4&issue_id=111%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/section.php?section_id=4&issue_id=111</a> . The Wespeaks page is at <a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/section.php?section_id=6&issue_id=111%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/section.php?section_id=6&issue_id=111</a> . (Note that the most recent issue isn't that recent, because students have been on the ridiculously long two-week spring break)</p>
<p>if i agree with the kid who wrote the article, would i be in for a tough time at wesleyan? id definitely consider myself liberal, but towards the moderate end of the liberal spectrum</p>
<p>No, I'd say you might be alright... but before you say that, read some of the criticism in future Wespeaks, because some of them make pretty good points, while I hadn't seen Evan Carp's Wespeak as anything too bad when I read it.</p>
<p>Some good ones are:
<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3079%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3079</a>
<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3080%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3080</a>
<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2897%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2897</a>
<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3075%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=3075</a>
<a href="http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2906%5B/url%5D">http://wesleyanargus.com/article.php?article_id=2906</a></p>
<p>I would definitely not say that the campus is as "stiflingly liberal" as guidebooks say - if anything, I was disappointed by the lack of hordes of passionate activists I had grown to kind of expect. There are a lot of normal kids here. They just tend not to be the ones writing the Wespeaks.</p>
<p>Every Wesleyan class has its share of folk who buck the general Wesleyan stereotype of a place full of liberal flag-burners. The degree to which they are accepted socially, and ultimately thrive, depends a lot on their personality, intelligience and sense of humor. A future Republican fund raiser lived in my dorm and no one could stand him; not because he held repugnant opinions (the strange thing is that he seldom discussed politics) but, because almost all of his connections were with people and places that were off campus. He was always flying away to Washington on the weekends; his conversations were studded with dropped names (at a place full of celebrity kids) and otherwise made it plain that he was just passing through on the way to his degree.</p>
<p>But, he was an exception. Let's face it, at least 50% of your time at Wesleyan will be spent eating, sleeping (figuratively speaking), and brushing your teeth with people you may never interact with that closely again for the rest of your life; people are going to be much more concerned with whether you are cheerful, courteous and leave the seat down after you use the toilet than whether or not you personally believe Bush is a douchebag. </p>
<p>You can be a conservative (or a moderate Democrat) and still shake your booty at Spring Fling, hang out on Foss Hill and partake in other ordinary (albeit legal) acts post-adolescent behavior. How you spend the other 50% of your time is strictly your business.</p>
<p>thanks for the information. I bookmarked them. The school sends me email of what's new at Wesleyan with news, arts and features but no opinion. I guess school don't want opinions deceminated to propies.DANA</p>
<p>thank you very much madjoy and johnwesley, very helpful as always</p>
<p>An admissions officer said to me during a recent Wesleyan visit; "There were 7,288 applications this year and 26% were offered admission to fill 720 available spots".</p>
<p>Therefore;</p>
<p>[7,288 X .26 = 1895 offered admission]</p>
<p>A 38% yield [.38 x 1895] would result in 720 new freshmen.</p>
<p>So that's just about a 6% increase in applications (from 6879 for Class of 2009). Not an explosion like Swarthmore or Middlebury (apps up 19% and 17%, respectively), but more than Williams (up 2.3%) or Amherst (weirdly, down 2.3%).</p>
<p>26% admit rate is a 2% drop from last year's 28%. Yield for the Class of 2009 was 38%; it had been 39% or 40% in the four preceding years.</p>
<p>This is nuts, the only reason all these app numbers are going up is since people are now applying to like 18 colleges. It's insane!</p>
<p>Thanks for the info - interesting!</p>
<p>From my brief research the 7,288 apps. is the all time high. Can anyone confirm this ?</p>
<p>Yes. Previous high was five years ago (Class of 2005) -- 7014.</p>