<p>I'm visiting Wesleyan next week. Is there anything special that I should do/see (besides tour and info session)?</p>
<p>O'Roark's diner for lunch.</p>
<p>What day are you going? What other schools are you looking at? Where are you from?</p>
<p>hahah you're grilling her like a seasoned cop</p>
<p>Um are you going to be there for wesfest? Because everything goes on then haha.</p>
<p>Sorry about the grilling. Obviously, I'm a parent. I would also like my son to choose Wesleyan. He'll be visiting for the third time on April 22d.
He thinks he has an agonizing choice (Tufts, Reed, Trinity). He's from the northeast, but is not averse to being far from home. He is very interested in how other admittees are making their choices.</p>
<p>you should check out the gym. it's not on the official tour because it's a little out of the way on their route, but the tour guide will point to it, hopefully. anyway it's brand new and absolutely spectacular.</p>
<p>try sitting out on foss hill for a little while, reading a book or something, and just absorbing the atmosphere. if you're more bold, go up to someone and ask them what they think about their experiences here. or maybe eat a meal somewhere on campus - if you're with your parents, that's a good way to go.</p>
<p>If people know you're a prospy then you won't have to ask anyone to tell you, they'll run up to you and do it anyway. My tour group was attacked by a hoarde of wes students, twas amazing :-)</p>
<p>Thunderhighs, my decision is between Lafayette, Wesleyan, Colgate, University of Rochester, and Penn State Honors (Schreyers).
I ruled out the two university's because I think that the intellectual atmosphere and the relationship between students and professors would be more pronounced at a LAC. Also, they student body seems to be more focused on the learning instead of the grade, which means that there hopefully won't be too many grade/gpa mongers there.</p>
<p>I've visted the three LAC's I applied to (heh and I got into all the LAC's i applied to hehe) and I got different feelings from all of them. Colgate and Lafayette seemed to be slightly more conservative and the students at colgate didn't seem that friendly. I smiled at a few people there and they looked back with a dead stare. Students were walking by but no one stopped to talk to us or anything. Lafayette was different because I went there about a year ago for a prospective student day so most of my interactions were with other students in High School and they seemed like a cool bunch. The admissions staff there was awesome though and i actually got talking to more of them than current Laff students.</p>
<p>Your son has some awesome choices. Reed, Tufts, and Wesleyan are awesome schools. The reason I ended up not applying to tufts was first because I wanted to be able to get to know my profs and have them actually be able to care, which rules out most university's and also i didn't want the cutthroat competition associated with tufts, which is true in a lot of disciplines.
Reed is another awesome school, but i didn't apply due to distance. The school has an awesome intellectual community and is pretty diverse. As far as race goes, both wes and reed are equally diverse. Thing is that from what i've read and heard, Reed students are often too stressed out about their work. I like my work and I actually love learning, but the stress is not necessary.
Wesleyan, I had an awesome visit here and i'm going back day after tomorrow to go to Wesfest. I think the diversity in race and in thought is really awesome at wes. The student body tends to be extremely friendly and due to the artsy presence on campus, there's tons to talk about and tons to do. At the info session I went to in fall last year, I remember that wes didn't say anything stuck up, or try overadvertising themselves. The school itself seemed to be very comfortable with what it was, which is something I loved. I went to an info session at colgate and all i remember from it is being told that they have an awesome campus and good alumni connections. Not really what i wanted to learn that day.
In the end, I'm slightly torn between wes, colgate and lafayette. My heart's set on wesleyan, but it costs 22k a year after finaid, while lafayette costs 14k and colgate 16k. Wesleyan also refused to match the financial aid offer from colgate, which was slightly upsetting given that some of my friends have done that for hopkins and georgetown.
So if financial aid wasn't the issue, my deposit would have been in at wesleyan weeks ago. But sadly it is.
In the long run, I think that I personally will be happier at wesleyan because the culture there is more 'me' than that at lafayette and colgate (the two schools have VERY big greek scenes and LOTS of alcohol etc because they're not close to much). Wesleyan is in a nice place and there's always something to do there, i'm not saying that the campus is sober because hell it's college and there will be drugs and alcohol. But I know that there will be enough else going on to not let that bother me.
Good luck to your son, hopefully i'll see him at wes next year. Let us know what he decides on!
Is he going to wesfest???</p>
<p>Yes, he's going to the April 22d Wesfest, which will be his third visit (he is very careful about his decisions). Your post was very generous and helpful, and I'll share it with him! You sound like a great kid, and I hope Wes comes through with more fin aid (send them your post!). BTW, we visited Reed last week, and it has an incredibly charming and lovely campus, with a great intellectual atmosphere. However, although the kids were interesting and creative, they did all seem to be cut from the same cloth, and the school is pretty small (1300). I think Wes has a lot more variety in opinions, style, ethnicity, etc., which makes for a livelier classroom and campus. But Reed seems like a very scholarly sanctuary with extremely caring teachers, and my son may very well end up there (boo-hoo, far away). At any rate, I was highly impressed, as was my son, but Wes may be a better fit (he's very opininated and loves to debate anything). I've heard the same criticisms about Tufts, but it is very well regarded and a popular choice at his HS, as well as being larger (which he thinks may be a plus socially) and close to Boston, so he will look at it carefully next week. Best of luck to you, and I hope you are both at Wes next fall!</p>
<p>Thanks!
Yeah, I've talked to finaid a LOT and they just said they don't do the matching game (even though they're recruiting me...).
Yeah, I personally didn't consider any schools with less students with my SAT score :-P
I don't want to go to college with less schools than I'm going to high school with. 2800 is a good number, there will always be enough students so that you won't know everyone by the time you graduate, so you can always meet new people while making awesome bonds.
Wesleyan has a lot going for it, they won't give me more financial aid, but i don't think of any place i'd rather be come fall.
When i think of diversity, %'s aren't as important as numbers. Wesleyan's got both. I'm Indian, and I lived in India for 11 years so i'd love to see tons of international students as well as a diverse student body, and wesleyan has that. I love it!
Hopefully your son picks wes :-)</p>