<p>crest university...i mean colgate....</p>
<p>watercannon: I'm looking at the Princeton Review right now but I don't see Brown on the list, however, I see Olin, Stanford, Rice, WashU, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc. I don't see how the Quality of Life rankings denotes a relaxed/friendly atmosphere. -_-</p>
<p>Collegeprep- Har har har :-P</p>
<p>I'm going to disagree with birch45, who seems to have some sort of a grudge - "Westech" as some students ironically refer to Wesleyan University is not less academically demanding, though I'd definitely agree that it's extremely noncompetitive. There doesn't seem to be much grade inflation here, but students the lack of obsessing over grades is a welcome change from my highly competitive and unpleasant high school experience.</p>
<p>My guess is that one can expect similar among other small liberal arts schools.</p>
<p>Birch base your statements on facts...
Wesleyan wouldn't be doing nearly as well as it does with grad schools if the students there weren't prepared, which would be a result of being the 'softest' ride in the nescac.</p>
<p>ive got 2 friends up at weslyan- ones likes it, the other is transferring on the basis that people there are "weird and arrogant"</p>
<p>Wesleyan was #9 on the Boalt Law School internal memo leaked by the LATimes in 1997, in terms of toughness of grading:</p>
<p>Swarthmore 89.5
Williams 89.0
Duke 88.5
Carleton 88.0
Colgate 88.0
J. Hopkins 87.5
Chicago 87.0
Dartmouth 87.0
Wesleyan 87.0
Cornell 86.5
Harvard 86.5
Middlebury 86.0
Princeton 86.0
Bates 85.5
MIT 85.5
Haverford 85.0
Pomona 85.0
Virginia 85.0
Amherst 84.5
Reed 84.5
Vanderbilt 84.5
Wm & Mary 84.5
Bowdoin 83.5
Tufts 83.5
Vassar 83.5
Bryn Mawr 83.0
Hamilton 83.0
Oberlin 83.0
Rice 83.0
U. Pennsylvania 83.0
Clrmt. McK. 82.5
Yale 82.5
Brandeis 82.0
Northwestern 82.0
Colby 81.5
Michigan 81.5
Notre Dame 81.5
Wash. U. 81.0
Barnard 80.5
Columbia 80.5
Stanford 80.5
Brown 80.0
Georgetown 80.0
Smith 80.0
Wellesley 80.0
Emory 79.5
U. North Carolina 79.5
Whitman C. 79.5
Rochester 79.0
UC Berkeley 78.5
UC San Diego 78.5
Illinois 78.0
SUNY Bing 78.0
Texas 78.0
Trinity U. 77.5
Boston College 77.0
UC S. Barbara 77.0
Wisconsin 77.0
Florida 76.5
U. Washington 76.5
Santa Clara 76.0
Geo. Wash. 75.5
UC Davis 75.5
UCLA 75.5
Colorado 75.0
Michigan State 75.0
Boston University 74.5
Cal Poly SLO 74.5
Massachusetts 74.0
Penn State 74.0
Iowa 73.5
Purdue 73.5
SMU 73.5
SUNY Albany 73.5
BYU 73.0
Minnesota 73.0
Ohio State 73.0
Oregon 73.0
UC Irvine 73.0
Indiana 72.5
NYU 72.0
SUNY Buff 72.0
SUNY Stony 72.0
Mills 71.5
American 71.0
Arizona 71.0
Loyola Mary. 71.0
Maryland 71.0
Fordham 70.5
Kansas 70.0
Syracuse 70.0
USC 70.0
Arizona St. 69.5
CS San Diego 69.5
Catholic U. 69.5
Oklahoma 69.5
Pacific 69.5
Hofstra 69.0
UC Riverside 68.5
Utah 68.5
CS Chico 68.5
Miami 68.0
New Mexico 68.0
San Diego 68.0
CS Northridge 67.0
Pepperdine 67.0
CS San Fran. 66.0
CS Sacramento 65.0
Hawaii 64.5
Denver 63.5
CS Fullerton 63.0
CS Hayward 63.0
CS Long Beach 63.0
CS San Jose 63.0
CS Fresno 62.5
St. Mary's 61.5
CCNY 59.0
CS LA 58.5
Howard 57.5
San Francisco 57.5</p>
<p>Can that really be right? It certainly doesn't jive with the reputations of the two schools.</p>
<p>Stonecold, people differ on who they are. Your friend should have known that wesleyan attracts what you called a 'weird' (and I call an open and out there) crowd. As far as arrogance goes, I've seen none. If your friend is close minded, then I bet there's a lot of that towards them.</p>
<p>Good luck to your friend for transfer apps! Do they know where they're headed (if they transferred already)?</p>
<p>miami ohio</p>
<p>unc-ch</p>
<p>rutgers</p>
<br>
<p>ive got 2 friends up at weslyan- ones likes it, the other is transferring on the basis that people there are "weird and arrogant"<</p>
<br>
<p>This reminds me of the story -- perhaps apocryphal -- of the college sophomore who visits a h/s friend who has been having a difficult time adjusting to Wesleyan. They spend the entire weekend together, meeting dozens of students, spending time with them and talking to them, mainly about what they didn't like about other Wesleyan students. At the end of the weekend after spending hours listening to his friend and his friend's friends do nothing but bust on Wesleyan students. The visitor finally asks, "What exactly don't you like about Wesleyan?" to which the friend replies (with a suck of the teeth) "Well, everyone's so catty!"</p>
<p>about the boalt survey,- people... this is a made up scale... it's not like measuring something concrete like weight or length. also, if you read how the # are calculated, it also includes LSAT score as well and other stuff and is not just or even mostly on # of A's given and even if it was, it would just say that swarthmore gives 3 fewer less A's per 100 students than harvard... that doesn't seem to be a big distinction at all!</p>
<p>I could be wrong but I think the Boalt survey used LSATs as a 'control.'</p>
<p>They looked at kids with similar LSAT scores from different schools, then looked at their GPAs. They noticed that--given the same LSAT score-- the GPAs tended to be lowest at the top of this list and highest at the bottom. </p>
<p>It isn't a perfect test, because LSATs are not a prefect control. But if you accept LSAT performance as a very rough estimate of 'smarts,' then this list has validity.</p>
<p>Reed College in Portland Or. Almost too relaxed but top notch academics. Truly an unbelievable place</p>
<p>Fur Uncle et all, all the other lists (even the US News one) is made without data that is as solid as 'weight' and 'length'. So that's something that's a common thread. I don't really believe too much in these rankings anyway. It'd be interesting to see the top grad school's reveal their selection criterion for all the schools, that would be the ultimate feast in a debate such as this.
The boalt info is merely a tease.</p>
<p>reed? hmm.</p>
<p>no objections to it being a wonderful, academically-engaging place. and very rewarding for those who spend their 4 collegiate years in oregon.</p>
<p>but relaxed? the stuff about it on this sight (and p.review, ranking them very high on the 'students never stop studying' list) leads me to believe otherwise.</p>
<p>How I wish you could spell :-P
'Site' not 'sight', ;-)</p>
<p>Some people enjoy the studying, and are relaxed while doing it.
You'd be suprised at how much 'fun' study sessions with friends can be. The weirder the connections to material, the better you remember it.
Go figure!</p>
<p>
[quote]
How I wish you could spell :-P
'Site' not 'sight', ;-)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>uh.</p>
<p>how i love being corrected?
[insert a return-to-sender on the tongue-out smiley]</p>
<p>additionally, yes, some people do have fun studying. don't believe i ever deemed this an impossibility or unlikelihood.</p>
<p>take me for example.
this year, i think my most effective and successful study acronym went something like...Alcoholics Anonymous In Treatment Slurp Cold Soda.</p>
<p>whatever works.</p>
<p>Definitely Richmond - absolutely a friendly atmosphere, and I would say it's pretty relaxed.</p>