“The posts above imply that the problem really isn’t so bad (“may paint a picture of a problem that is a bit out of proportion to reality”) or that this is just the way the world is (“there is no adequately safe campus for young women”); or that somehow my motives for inquiring about Wesleyan’s rape problem are suspect (“this came across as very genuine outrage.”) Don’t each of you see that you are all trivializing the problem you see as real? And so you are belittling me?”
First, all of those quotes are from my post, so “each of you” is misplaced. Nobody else is calling you out. The other posters are simply trying, with good intentions, to help you see the stats for what they are and not to overreact to a google search based on some recent incendiary comments. Come on now.
As for my comments, I own them. No, I’m not belittling you. If you’re genuinely concerned about this issue (I am; I am a young woman’s father after all), then I don’t take issue with the fact that you are concerned. That goes without saying. However, I’ve been on this board a lot longer than my profile suggests, and I can make educated guesses - that’s all they can ever be - about whether someone is furthering another agenda behind some stated concern in their posts. As silly as it seems, these New England liberal arts colleges are fiercely competitive with one another, and as one rises for this or that reason, stakeholders in the others will take their shots. There was a character on this board last year named Englishman who was ostensibly an Amherst parent who did nothing but levy insults about Wes under the guise of information sharing and genuine concern. Your post smacked a little of his style. If I’m wrong then I’m wrong.
Finally, you unreasonably misinterpreted two of my comments completely out of context and have erroneously (and I suspect disingenuously) ascribed to me malicious intent. The “paint a picture” comment was obvious - I’m telling you what a few others have told you, and that is not to overreact to your search hits on the term “rape factory” and some bumpy statistics about Wesleyan. And you shouldn’t. If that’s how you make decisions, best of luck to you. The “there is no adequately safe campus” comment hardly implied what you say it implied. It’s a statement that rape is, in fact, a national problem on college campuses, and that it happens too often everywhere. The inference you draw from that statement, that I think “that’s just the way it is”, is quite ridiculous. It’s the opposite - I’m saying it’s a problem everywhere and I’m acknowledging its existence.
Look, if you want to believe that Wesleyan is a particularly dangerous place to go to school, have at it. I don’t really care. I simply agree with others that you’re probably overreacting as it applies to Wes. If you’re playing @Englishman 's game, then I feel quite sorry for you.
I’m out.
Have to add one more:
“… promoted in part by people who see themselves as truth seekers.”
I thought this comment was particularly rich, given the intellectual rigor with which you seek “truth”. El Oh El.
This is obviously a very important topic and a real consideration for students choosing a school. However, I can’t help but get the sickening feeling that some parents under some false pretense are using it in attempt to put down a school rather than looking for objective information. I hope I am wrong about that.
FWIW, I don’t know anything about the two schools being discussed and have no opinion about either one.
@ucresearcher444 , you echo my suspicions.
Just an aside - as an Amherst parent, that Englishman fellow really pissed me off. He made us look bad. I have nothing but respect for Wes, and my second daughter is considering going there.
@ThankYouforHelp , fwiw, every school has an Englishman, or two or three, on every forum.
Good luck to your daughter.
I may have missed a post or two above, but which parents are trying to put down schools and who is the englishman? Did those posts get deleted?
@citivas I believe the idea was that, in past years, there was a poster, known as the Englishman, who was an Amherst parent bashing Wes, which made everyone uncomfortable with how partisan he/she was. The suggestion was that, the series of posts, from a poster with no previous history, that Wes is a “rape factory” with 2 rapes a day, could have been a similar type of CC “sabotage,” particularly when Wes just had some positive press with Forbes list.
To the OP: balance and judgment are necessary skills for the college student. Extrapolating from a Huff post reference that a single fraternity house was called a “rape factory,” to the claim that the entire college, or at least all of the fraternity houses, are known as rape factories, is imprecise. So is suggesting that, bc the FBI says rape is underreported by a factor of 10 that, with 37 reported rapes in 2014, Wes must therefore have 370 a year, or 2 a day during the school year – is similarly imprecise and unnecessarily inflammatory. If there were 2 rapes a day at Wes, we can be darn sure that it could not be covered up, and the obstreperous student body at Wes would not stand for it. None of the parents here are suggesting that rape is not a big problem on college campuses, and we are all concerned about our kids. A reason-based analysis of what is happening at Wes, and how it may differ from other LACs, is important, and we have been trying to support you in that process. Accusing others of belittling the speaker when they respond to imprecise (or more appropriately, sloppy, reasoning) is not a productive attitude for a student contemplating a liberal arts education.
@citivas, just search @Englishman 's post history. The content is self-explanatory. I assume he finally got deleted. Will probably re-appear again under another name. Already has tried that a few times, but his M/O is so obvious he can never hide himself very well. Practically speaking, what gives him away is that his rants always come back to some kind of slam on Wesleyan. Something happened there and he really has an axe to grind. Haven’t seen him in a while.
I’ll let @ucresearcher444 answer for himself what he meant … it was his post. I suspect he suspects what I suspect about @luvegan , but I’m not certain of that.
I also suspect that the guy has no connection at all to do with Amherst, but rather has a history with Wesleyan and is looking for revenge. Of course I can’t prove it - we are all anonymous here.
The Little Three should stick together, not snipe at each other. Well, maybe snipe a little at those jerks from Williams, but that’s different 
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Another Dad whose daughter is considering Wes. I have no first hand information at all, but at some point aren’t we required to use common sense? Wes is a majority female school with a long time reputation of being a haven for people who advocate for social change and “social justice”. The school draws applications in increasing numbers every year from young adults interested in such things, and a large majority of those are from young women. If any bit of the “rape factory” stuff was true, let alone that 2 women a day are being actually raped on that campus, doesn’t common sense tell us that some of the women there would leave? Or that you would see fewer and fewer women apply, especially if they “are much more aware” of the issue of campus rape? How many young women of your acquaintance would voluntarily put themselves in a position where they had such a high risk of being raped?
Realize also that you are not talking about rape as that term was commonly defined not that long ago. Most of the incidents we see on campus involve alcohol, and a subsequent question of whether a particular young woman provided effective consent to a particular young man. If you are truly and honestly concerned about being safe on a campus like Wes, the very best thing you can do is not drink to excess and avoid taking too many drugs.
You would be correct MiddleburyDad. I will post in generalities about this because obviously I can’t be certain about it.
When you see someone make a total of four posts with all four posts slamming one school, you might question their motive for posting. There is no way to be sure, so this is just a general observation about some posters on this website.
@Ohiodad51 , yes, I share your view.
In fact, it was the apparent lack of common sense, and the enthusiastic willingness to jump in with “OMG! Women are being raped at 700 times the national average” hyperbole, that makes me still wonder if this person is in fact an interloper. I’d put $$ on it at this point.
The tell tale sign is the ‘out of nowhere’ over-the-top hit and subsequent disappearance.
I was on a topic over at the forum of the college with the aforementioned #1 food the day before this topic was started and someone who exclusively posts hundreds of replies only about that school (for over a decade) got bent out of shape that several of us were sharing stats about the ratio of athletes at each of the NESCAC schools, even though we were saying positive things about the school. The moderator had to close the topic and delete some of the posts. The said poster accused me specifically of being some Wesleyan plant and to get back over to this forum, which was hilarious (and I actually hadn’t even been to this forum for weeks until they suggested it though). A day later someone registers and immediately starts this topic. Likely a total coincidence, but if you had a conspiratorial mind…
@citivas, yeah, that seems plausible. As @ucresearcher444 notes, none of us can prove anything, but I find it entertaining how poor these attempts tend to be. If you’re motivated enough to build a new account to covertly make a point, you’d think you’d have the discipline to be more subtle about it.
Given the OP’s constant references to Bowdoin, I’m guessing this is your polar bear wandering around the bird cage.
“OMG! I am definitely not going to Wesleyan.”
Nobody smart enough to get into a NESCAC school would make that statement and need that much help to put the stats into context, even if still in high school.
Like @Ohiodad51 said, at some point, if you have even a mental pulse, you’d do a logic check on what Wes is all about, who would tend to be attracted to the school, and ask yourself, “can this be right?”
Unless of course you were pushing another agenda.
I’ll also point out that the silence from the OP is deafening.
“OMG! I am definitely not going to Wesleyan.”
If there was ever a red flag to questionable posting motives, this would be the poster child. It is sad. IMO there are far too many parents posting under false pretenses on this forum in an attempt to bad mouth schools out of jealousy or some imagined grudge. As aggravating as it can be, I don’t these tactics sway many opinions.
One last point and I will probably move on from this thread. One good aspect to this forum is a poster can only edit words for 15 minutes. I post on other boards where a poster can edit at any time and there is no indication of editing. That makes it easy for a devious person to go back in time to edit his/her comments.