<p>As an eighteen year old kid, I'd love to go to Wesleyan, but as a 50 year old parent, I think I'd prefer my kid to go somewhere a little more middle of the road. Wesleyan has a similar problem to Oberlin, great schools, great classes, but an image problem.</p>
<p>I don't think Wesleyan has an image problem at all. A school with an image problem would not have an entering class with a 1400 SAT average and accept less than 30% of its applicants. Wesleyan appeals to a certain type of student, and I think it's much better for it to have a niche than to be generic. I do think that the percieved craziness is blown out of proportion, but I think it's better to have that than to be seen as boring.</p>
<p>an image problem? for whom? fox news? thank god not everyone chooses a school because of its "image". "great schools, great classes" you're right. that's why i'm heading there, choosing it from a group of schools with i guess what you would consider better images or less image problems. with an acceptance rate of about 26-28% and almost 7,000 students applying for about 720 spots, is its image that big of a problem?</p>
<p>the school's graduates go on to the best grad and professional schools and excel in not only the traditional professions of medicine, law, and business but also in fields like film, non-profits, publishing, the art world, and education.</p>
<p>this image problem thing is just another "problem" wesleyan bashers like to discuss. there are thousands of colleges and universities in the country to choose from, so those who think a school is too liberal for them have lots of alternatives.</p>
<p>I think the point is that whatever legitmate questions Ohiogenius may have raised were answered many posts ago. What's going on now is just another round of "he said, she said".</p>
<p>Wesleyan rose to prominence during the height of the 1960s and in many ways still serves as a lightning rod for conservative ideologues who can't quite fathom how the college that jump started affirmative action, spear-headed the South Africa disinvestment movement and coined the phrase "politically correct",-- continues to gain in selectivity, popularity and national prominence.</p>
<p>Xmatt, you explained your thinking process. If you don't care and are not angry at owugenious why do you keep posting???</p>
<p>I didn't read the initial postings of owugenious as insulting to you or anyone. He made a point about your school. You can't bash him because you don't like his point?????</p>
<p>Nor is it inappropriate for anyone to post in other forums if he has an opinion. </p>
<p>In the links that you posted, he was doing the same that you are doing right now. However, he did argue points about your school which you are not doing right now at all. All you do is posting a few links trying to insult him. Do you think you can convince anyone about the intelligence of a Columbia PhD student with several degrees from prestigious schools when you yourself are just a high-school graduate (like myself).</p>
<p>To do you justice, it is much better for you to sound defensive than to sound vindictive or insulting in all of this. Which is how your replies sound to a lot of people reading your posts. Either way, it doesn't make your reaction to it any less nasty. Being a PhD student at Columbia, owugenius is a big boy, so I doubt that this is keeping him awake at night. And the rest of CC probably just ignored your pesky messages and links to other sites and got on with their lives. As will I.</p>
<p>Why you and OWUgenius, despite sharing the same interest in Ohio, Ohio colleges and OWU in particular, never seem to post in the same thread (this being one of the very few exceptions?) And seem prone to many of the same grammatical and syntax errors?</p>
<p>I am very interested in schools with strong community service emphasis and Pope's 'Colleges that change lives'. Denison, Ohio Wesleyan and Wooster are 3 of the schools on that list. In my opinion, they are the best schools in Ohio for me. Start a thread and we can discuss them at length.</p>
<p>Stud05,</p>
<p>Those are 3 wonderful schools. I have a family friend who attends Wooster and loves it.</p>
<p>To discuss these schools at length, one can go to the threads in the Alphabetical List of Colleges section on this site. There is an individual who posts there under the name "peter05" who also seems very interested in those three schools.</p>
<p>Good luck! I'd go for Wooster in that group.</p>
<p>When it comes to places like Oberlin, Reed, Antioch etc, I think parents are a little reluctant. Wesleyan is pretty much on that list. I don't agree with that, Oberlin has some of the best courses in america and Antioch is a fantastically challenging experience, but I think all of them could do with a little more diversity of thought.</p>
<p>well, thank god parents and students can pick a school outside of that "list" of demonized schools. nevermind that antioch, oberlin, reed, and wesleyan grads do quite well in the world despite the perceived oppressive lack of "diversity of thought".</p>
<p>Schools go to a lot of trouble to sell themselves to students (and their parents) so perception and image, right or wrong, is important. Articles like the aforementioned one, affirm those perceptions/stereotypes and can do a lot of damage. It is important that they be challenged - if the school thinks they're incorrect. However changing image and perceptions is a long time process and just challenging those who malign is not enough. The school needs to make some actual changes. Oberlin has been changing its entrance requirements in an effort to change its student body. Other schools with image problems - Colgate, Denison are doing the same. Perhaps it hasn't quite come to that point yet for Wesleyan but they might be wise to take heed.</p>
<p>take heed of what? and for what? what do you think the consequences will be if the school doesn't?</p>
<p>i think one of wesleyan's strengths is that it isn't like every other northeastern liberal arts college in terms of its image and the type of students it attracts. and, as johnwesley pointed out on another thread, if you really look at how colleges have transformed themselves in the last 10 to 15 years, you'll see that colleges have and are striving to be more diverse, to be more inclusive. wesleyan was one of the first to make that a priority. the composition of the student bodies and the curricula at the other top liberal arts colleges have become more like wesleyan's than the other way around. </p>
<p>so i don't really understand the cautionary tone of your posts. i understand where it comes from, but don't think the situation's quite that desperate. the whole "liberalism-is-out-of-control" mindset is just a lot of hooey from the right. smart students at demanding colleges can sort through all the input (yes, even those out of control liberal ones) and make their own informed decisions about things.</p>
<p>wesleyan students and graduates are doing just fine. at the end of the day, it's all about the education available there, and it's more than solid.</p>
<p>Let me put it this way - there was once a newspersonality in my town who got branded by a ridiculous rumor. The story was that he had to be rushed to the emergency room to have a gerbil removed from his anus. Totally ridiculous, put after awhile millions of people knew about it, no doubt a good many of them believing it. He even tried to deal with the rumour but was unsuccessful and eventually had to take a job in another town. Other products have had similar struggles - I think a soap manufacturer became targeted because of a rumour about Satanic images on the label. They had to change their packaging. Wesleyan, rightly or wrongly, has become tied to "naked dorms" etc. If they care (and I suspect they do) they need to "change their packaging". This is business, it's not about what reality may or may not be - perception in packaging or advertising is very important, they're selling a product - probably a very good one - why let some crap interfere with the sales pitch.</p>
<p>As I was browsing everything2, look what I found:
<a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University%5B/url%5D">http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University</a></p>
<p>The article was written by xmatt who is bashing two of the contributors on here. </p>
<p>xmatt's consistency check: </p>
<p>1.1 I don't really think that there's an image problem so much as three isolated incidents.</p>
<p>xmatt's review from <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University%5B/url%5D">http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University</a></p>
<p>1.2 It has a reputation as an extremely drug imbibing, eclectic place. This is not undeserved.</p>
<p>2.1 Are you really that burned up by the fact that when people say "Wesleyan" they're usually referring to our school and not yours? Seriously, why bother?</p>
<p>xmatt's review from <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University:%5B/url%5D">http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University:</a></p>
<p>2.2 There are many universities around the U.S. that sport the name "Wesleyan", but there is only one original. </p>
<p>3.1 Run it for any other top northeast private (which OWU is not, in case you haven't noticed) and I doubt it'll be drastically different.</p>
<p>xmatt's review from <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University%5B/url%5D">http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University</a></p>
<p>3.2 Though I myself am about as far from republican as possible, I do sometimes wish the campus were a little less politically hetereogeneous than it is.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should suggest that all Middletown's Wesleyan graduates spend their time orchestrating propaganda campaigns against other colleges many years after graduating? </p>
<p>4.1 ...and if all else fails, just blantantly fabricate things.</p>
<p>xmatt's review from <a href="http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University%5B/url%5D">http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Wesleyan%20University</a></p>
<p>4.2 with 21% of applicants being accepted this year (an incorrect fact)</p>
<p>As a seventeen-year-old kid, I'd love to go to a school whose 1973 graduates cling to internet forums as much as johnwesley. Scary?</p>
<p>all these NEW MEMBERS showing up to bash xmatt and johnwesley is suspicious and weird. not to mention transparent. </p>
<p>okay, we get your point. can you let this rest now? you're only making yourself look unstable and needy. enthusiasm for your alma mater is not so weird; constantly attacking a school you have no association with IS way weird.</p>
<p>yes, wesleyan's student body leans left. okay, you hate wesleyan. if you have a problem with it, then avoid all associations with the school.</p>
<p>thanks, everyone. let's all move on.</p>
<p>First of all, the people being bandied about here, fifty year olds with kids getting ready for college are not the problem. They remember Wesleyan from their own youth and, by and large, it's the same Wesleyan. Read the "gatekeepers" thread. Almost every parent with a child who has applied to Wesleyan has read the worst dirt that can be dished about the place and, if that thread is any indication--it has no effect. Why? Because I think people are inured to culture war politics and a little sick of it. If a seventeen year old can shoot holes through that John Leo article, there a probably enough 50 year olds out there to keep sending their kids to Wesleyan for the next 100 years.</p>
<p>I wrote that E2 node over two years ago. I started Wesleyan in September 2003. I think my perceptions of the school at the time were pretty accurate considering I had never been a student there and suffered from a lot of the delusions about it that outsiders do. And to be fair, you omitted several sentences immediately following a lot of what you quote that would've added context.</p>
<p>And you're right, I'm liberal. I'm a registered Democrat. I love the Daily Show. Big deal. I think it's pretty well understood that virtually every secular school leans left. If you have a TV station in your town that is run by Sinclair Broadcasting, you should try watching arch-conservative Mark Hyman's "The Point" sometime. He bashes higher education in general as being owned by the left roughly every other night. There was also an interesting counterpoint in "The Nation" a few months back called "Crybaby Conservatives: The New PC" about how the right constantly rails on higher education for being politically monolithic. They're not targeting specific schools.</p>
<p>I, like you all, wish that we lived in a world where liberal and conservative ideologies had real debate and coalesced into something that worked for everyone. Sadly, we don't live in that world. Our state and federal assemblies, or courts, and our schools are all politically polarized. I don't see it ending any time soon, either. If you find a school that's legitimately 50/50 and not totally apathetic, let me know. I'd be happy to go to it. But I don't think you'll find one. People who run character assassination against perceived "liberal" schools are just making things worse -- and so are people who do the same to Christian "conservative" schools. Just live and let live, for goodness sakes.</p>
<p>We've had Tufts syndrome and now we have Wesleyan Syndrome. You get accepted to what you think is a highly selective elite college, only to find out that 95% of Americans wouldn't want to go there. You're going to graduate from Wesleyan and every time you mention it, someone is going to say, "Isn't that the place where they have the naked dorms?" no thanks</p>
<p>A more accurate definition would be "an irrational fear of small, progressive colleges."</p>
<p>I've never seen xmatt be anything but kind and helpful except when he's being directly attacked.</p>