<p>Mythmom: I agree with all your points. The only difference is that my kids did not have a single dream school. As a result, S1 agonized between two schools (one from line a and one from line B, both with strong music scene). S2 came closer, but he knew he would have been happy at others as well. But he took the line that he could be happy at H and there was no point wondering whether he would be happi-er elsewhere.</p>
<p>True enough, and I think it’s better not to have one. With the quirkiness of college admissions, it’s just so risky. However, truth be told, my kids are kind of the poster children for their schools, especially my daughter, and they were perfect fits, which the adcoms recognized. I think because Barnard was a LAC in NY with Columbia right there there just was no equivalent. But it’s possible she would have found other parts of herself somewhere else.</p>
<p>My kids have hippie parents, hippie values but a more “classic” (I don’t want to say Conservative because they’re not) demeanor. Therefore, I do think both of them would have loved some things about Wes and other things about Midd and flourished both places.</p>
<p>S is a hippieish, bookish, musical non-athlete at Williams with a far left point of view. Popular wisdom says he shouldn’t fit in there, but he loves it there and loves the outdoors.</p>
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<p>The schools field the same number of NCAA teams and likely have similar numbers of athletes, the difference being that the teams at Middlebury win more games. ;-)</p>
<p>Yes, I agree with mythmom’s points. There are many kids on CC, too, who don’t care much about these fit issues at all. </p>
<p>So much choice. You can get a great education off in the Vermont or Maine woods, at your local public “honors college”, or pick the top N-M schools on some magazine list and resolve to be happy at any of them.</p>
<p>I am still extremely curious to hear what the perceived major difference is in culture between Wesleyan and Middlebury – it’s like the elephant in the room, numerous posters are talking around it but no one wants to say what it is.</p>
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<p>Middlebury–preppy, rich jocks who ski all winter long, wear Patagonia and summer in Nantucket.
Wesleyan–rich trustafarians with purple hair and multiple peircings who drive around in daddy’s BMW while protesting that the dining hall workers make minimum wage. </p>
<p>Both stereotypes were popular in the 80s, but things have changed significantly on both campuses.</p>
<p>Ah arcadia, that is interesting, can’t say that either stereotype is significant enough to discourage an application.</p>
<p>fendrock: Bingo! We’ve come full circle. There are folks who can tolerate both stereotypes!</p>
<p>i know a young lady who applied to those schools and a number of other schools similar in selectivity. She did not get into any of those. She did get into Bard where she went. </p>
<p>Goucher, Hobart William Smith, Hartwick, Colby (not a safety) are some possibilities.</p>
<p>Fendrock: My son applied to Vassar - Wesleyan - Oberlin and was accepted at all. He is currently at Vassar. He did not want to look at any other LACs. He refused to go to the Wes Accepted Student Days … just didn’t have as strong a feeling for it as he had for Vassar … and he did not really want to go to Ohio. He (and we) have been very happy with Vassar overall. Feel free to PM me with any specific Vassar questions.</p>
<p>Okay, so help me out again here - what kind of students go to Bowdoin and how do they differ from those who go to Middlebury or Wesleyan?</p>
<p>First off, most of the students at any of them probably don’t differ much from the students at either of the others. Not that the students at any of them are monolithic; just that each has generous helpings of the same types of students. The main difference among them may be that the Wes students picked Wes, while the Bowdoin students picked Bowdoin – but even that won’t be universally true, since I’m sure there are kids at Bowdoin who would have gone to Wesleyan if they had been admitted, and vice versa.</p>
<p>That said, here are the stereotypes for the schools as I understand them. They are not remotely “true”, but they probably do describe qualities that a particular school has a little more than the others, and that some portion of the students choosing that school value:</p>
<p>Wesleyan: arty, hip, ultra-PC (although plenty of students aren’t, and see the PC-ness as a form of amusement, but you have to be amused by it, not rendered apoplectic), ethnic music, Joss Whedon, closer to civilization (if Hartford, New Haven, and Providence count as such).</p>
<p>Middlebury: a little preppier, more conventional, sportsier, outdoorsier, lots of students attracted by language programs, most isolated, prettiest.</p>
<p>Bowdoin: somewhat more pre-professional in orientation, attracts lots of pre-meds especially, more sober; hippies who go to Maine LACs go to Bates or Colby, not Bowdoin; political median probably a little rightward compared to Wes (more than a little) or Midd.</p>
<p>Thanks JHS, especially appreciate your comment about being amused by PC-ness rather than rendered apoplectic!</p>
<p>The Bowdoin houses seem like a nice differentiator.</p>
<p>Well, S agonized between Wes and Bowdoin; he picked Wes largely because it was south rather than north of where we live. Politically liberal, personally fairly conservative. Yeah, he is amused by excessive PC-ness.</p>
<p>these schools, Wesleyan, Middlebury, and Bowdoin, all pretty much have the same types of students. are there differences? sure, but 90% of the student bodies overlap. that is, I’d place 90% of Middlebury’s student body on Wesleyan’s campus and they’d be perfectly happy. it’s the 10% that maybe you’re focusing on? it’s this 10% that gives each school its (exaggerated) reputation, but really, the school are much more similar than they are differet.</p>
<p>Are there really any teenaged hippies anymore? I’ve been to a bunch of campuses and haven’t encountered the hippie stereotype anywhere really. I see the vast majority of kids as being pretty mainstream nowadays. Goth is dead, birkenstocks have been traded in for Uggs, Northface abounds.</p>
<p>It’s funny – I acknowledge that the schools all have pretty much the same types of students. But for whatever reason I know a whole bunch of Wesleyan students – and that has been true for years – and no current Middlebury or Bowdoin students. They include the daughters of two close friends, the kid who lives next door, another kid from down the block, and my son’s first girlfriend. Plus my dad went to Wesleyan (as did all his college friends, natch). And one of my best friends from high school went there, too, and she had LOTS of cute friends there, so it was always a treat to visit. Plus Joss Whedon and Dana Delany and both members of MGMT – can’t ignore them! I have really warm feelings about Wesleyan, and practically no feelings about Bowdoin or Middlebury. </p>
<p>Bowdoin went through a period of deep unpopularity among my kids’ social set, probably without real justification. A very popular kid in the class ahead of my daughter went there, had a hard time socially, complained about it to her friends, and withdrew before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure Bowdoin was really part of the problem at all, but exactly none of my kids’ friends who were applying to New England LACs even applied to Bowdoin. (Bates, for contrast, enrolled six kids from my son’s old private-school class, and probably had at least 10 applications from that class.)</p>
<p>Well… first of all, there is a 1000 student difference between Bowdoin and Wes. That’s a pretty significant increase in the number of people (and potential friends, teammates, etc). Midd falls inbetween the two at around 2400. I went to a VERY small LAC and I can attest to the fact that if you start off really small, it’s only going to get small over the course of four years. My brother wanted desperately to go to Bowdoin, ended up at Kenyon instead but it wasn’t the same “vibe” to him, even though they were similar in many ways on paper. I think what’s most important to consider is not whether there is a certain group mentality that better fits who you are, but whether or not your mentality will have a place wherever you end up. And that’s why, whether it’s done at the beginning of the process or at the end of the process, you really should visit to get a feel for personality, fit and vibe. Of the three, I think Bowdoin and Midd are probably more alike than Wes and Midd or even Wes and Bowdoin. But I have nothing factual to base that on. But I can say this… I know kids at all three schools, and you probably couldn’t convince any one of them that the other school would have been a better fit. And these three were all great friends in high school - far more similar than different, for sure.</p>
<p>Wesleyan was something of a first mover, back in the mid-sixties when it came to things like affirmative action, LQBTQ acceptance and a lot of what has come under the rubric of diversity. These things have tended to mask just how strong its applicant pool and student body is when compared to “whiter” New England colleges; in fact, it’s ironic how the Joss Whedons, the Michael Bays and Sebastian Jungers of the college were graduating just as its USNews rankings were tanking.</p>
<p>Some of this has had its salutary side effects. I think Wesleyan tends to take controversey a little bit more in its stride than some of its preppier cohorts. When racist graffiti appeared in a freshman dorm a few years back, the deans went into action, there were meetings at the dorm; people vented; but, in the end, it was viewed as the isolated, puerile act it was, not as an indictment of the whole university. </p>
<p>In the end, I think it has developed a strong sense of itself within the ongoing tradition of the small New England residential college.</p>
<p>“Bowdoin: somewhat more pre-professional in orientation, attracts lots of pre-meds especially, more sober; hippies who go to Maine LACs go to Bates or Colby, not Bowdoin; political median probably a little rightward compared to Wes (more than a little) or Midd.”</p>
<p>I always enjoy JHS’s perspective in these forums and usually agree with his wisdom. When comparing these three schools, however, his description of Bowdoin in relation to the others seemed a bit different than my take. FWIW, my son attends Bowdoin and considered the other two before making his decision. He has friends at Middlebury, Bates, and Colby and has gotten to know the campus cultures at the other Maine schools through conferences and social visits. I’ve made several visits to his school, these past three years, and spent time at Bates as well. . .so I guess I’ve got a couple of opinions. I really don’t see Bowdoin as more pre-professional in it’s orientation than the others. Nor would I describe the campus culture as noticeably more right leaning politically – through there are those folks (both in the faculty and within the student body) who don’t hide their political opinions – it’s a wonderfully diverse and vibrant place. As for hippies, Bates has nothing on Bowdoin, in fact from son’s point of view it’s the opposite, and Colby is considered the most ‘preppy’ of the three amongst Mainers. Only offering a tiny point of view and, as always, I would encourage folks to visit these schools w/o preconceived notions, you may be surprised. I’m an old hippie myself and loved the vibe at Wesleyan (on our two visits) but ultimately had to agree with S that Bowdoin has some pretty serious stuff going for it with regard to anything one might want to do or anyone one might want to associate with. Now I’m a happy hippie that he’s there.</p>
<p>Oh, and to address the question of what kind of kids go to Bowdoin, and what differentiates them from the other schools – I have no idea.</p>