<p>To add, my DS14 chose Amherst for the learning experience, small class size and the opportunities, often these oppotunities comes from a huge endowment, we all know what those are. Just this week amongst a mirriad of options a meet and greet with Goldman Sachs and Harvard law School, he went to neither but I think they are emblematic of the options. I hate to repeat but Wes just isn’t getting the number of toppy students they once did, my DS was the only one from his high school to apply to Wes (because of CSS only), but 3 applied to A all are top 10% students, our HS has not ever had any student go to Wes they just are not as competitive for the top students that they once were, perhaps when you guys attended. Today the only real LAC’s our kids applied to were Williams, Bowdoin, Swarthmore and Amherst and Pomona, we dropped Swarthmore pretty quickly, there are alot of really not good things going on there, we didnt want part of it, Pomona is the real up and coming school up there with Williams and Amherst, Wesleyan alas is no longer a really attractive school, not because of USNWR rankings, we never used them and few I think do other than to initially perhaps to select a draft list of schools to consider. What Wes might need to do is a huge fund raise, like in the region of $1Bn, refurb all the dorms, rebuild the library, spend some money on Athletic facilities and do a big town and gown program to improve the close proximity of the town to the college. You have to visit to see these things, but I concur the endowment is a huge turn-off, they just can’t compete with the big boys in the LAC world ala Williams and Amherst.</p>
<p>Sorry, @Englishman, but, as someone who confused Fayerweather Hall, the 125 year-old former gym and presently refurbished Hogwarts-like banquet hall, with the Freeman Athletic Center when you last visited Wesleyan, you’re hardly qualified to make judgments here.</p>
<p>With respect @Circuitrider, I think you are mistaken, we did indeed visit Fayerweather (if by meaning it has turrets you mean it’s Hogwarts-like), btw the real Hogwarts @Christchurch is next door to my alma-mater college in Oxford!</p>
<p>We did eat @ during WesFest and its newer and nice, but I do not recall confusing it with the rather sullen Freeman Athletic Centre, of which I am now looking at my photo’s of, I am NOT confused. </p>
<p>I don’t disagree, Fayerweather looks good from the outside it’s a good looking student centre! My point is resources-wise, facilities, $$$ and opportunities-wise, Wesleyan as wes97 wisely notes, just cannot compare with its 'Little-Three bretheren, I don’t think either now consider Wes a competitor, neither any longer fears loosing applicants to Wes. </p>
<p>But each to his own.</p>
<p>^If you’re not willing to admit you made a mistake when visiting Wesleyan and are still advising it to spend more money on athletic facilities when it already has newer and more expensive facilites than either Amherst or Williams, then I have to stop taking you seriously as a poster.</p>
<p>“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”</p>
<p>-- Yogi Berra</p>
<p>If we are talking about today’s students and not when you and I were undergrads at our respective colleges, things really do change and Wesleyan just isn’t the same school that you went to. Nothing a $1bn or so could not help, but really today’s students just aren’t looking to Wesleyan for all the reasons Wesleyan97 and others have noted, but again I wouldn’t expect you to agree to that either. </p>
<p>I’d say it might be time for the trustees to consider a change at the top and a new fundraising campaign, seven years is more than enough!</p>
<p>While the current campaign seems to be meeting its goals, I believe Wesleyan actually could raise a billion dollars if the admin and fundraising committee and faculty put their heads together to articulate an evolutionary vision for the school that embraces the University’s ideals but translates them into something truly exciting and substantive–serious and innovative (not gimmicky) interdisciplinary programs [peace and justice studies, sustainable materials engineering (my pet favorite), a major requiring two foreign languages dedicated to interrogating the legacy of colonialism and its reincarnation as corporatism and formulating generative responses (something like a super-brainy anti-IB major that can produce academics and leaders), and whatever…my imagination is limited but all those smart profs can shake off their barnacles and think of something–that truly speak to the world’s present crises, much-increased emphasis on writing as mentioned before–changes that will inspire the BIG donors to reach deep into their pockets. This vision must break free of Wesleyan’s moribund appeal to nostalgia about its “glory” years as, respectively, establishment school and den of clever mischief. If Wesleyan really wants to move forward as an institution both progressive AND respected, it needs to teach students to go beyond airing grievances through effete protests and victimhood studies. How about fundamental research into how to destabilize self-perpetuating systemic inequities instead of sending waves of girning limousine liberals into the world with a chip on their shoulder? I also wonder if reducing the entering class size by say 1/4 would help. The school would take some sort of income hit but it would increase the prof-to-student ratio and allow the clearing away of the hideous Foss Hill dorms (or the Butt) to make room for a new science building. And the old science building could eventually be replaced with…anything that doesn’t look like a chocolate bar. To get out of its present rut Wesleyan needs more than nips and tucks–hence the original thread title.</p>
<p>Oh touche… @Wesleyan97 one couldn’t agree more.</p>
<p>Not bad for an Internet forum, @wesleyan97. You emphasize excellence and institutional identity, but I won’t paraphrase further . . . The last thing we need is another college that chiefly aspires to sending reinforcements to the power stucture.</p>
<p>. . . I see so much garbage written that at first I thought “interrogating” was a typo for “integrating.”</p>
<p>@wesleyan97
</p>
<p>Um, I’ll settle for a possible cure for epilepsy:
<a href=“Grant Will Support Epilepsy Therapy Study at Wesleyan”>http://newsletter.blogs.wesleyan.edu/2013/07/01/stemcellgrantresearch/</a></p>
<p>It already exists: neurofeedback. So long as the epileptogenic focus or foci produce activity measurable by EEG (i.e., are not too deep to the cortex), neurofeedback training–especially of the sensorimotor rhythm–has profound, sometimes curative, effects on epilepsy without the chemical burden of medications or common complications of neurosurgery or, in this instance, the necessity of barbaric experimental procedures on sentient beings. Correlational fMRI/EEG studies have allowed such interventions to become even more precise. </p>
<p>That you will settle is not news.</p>
<p>^Not that I’m accusing you of plagiarism, but could you provide a cite, please?</p>
<p>I know a bunch of kids each year who look at that group of small, highly selective colleges, and eliminate Wesleyan because it’s not as preppy. I also know a bunch who eliminate those other colleges and make W a top choice for the same reason. The question comes up as to whether it overall hurts or helps W to have that vibe and whether it’s worth it to try to change it. </p>
<p>@circuitrider Just google neurofeedback and epilepsy. Plagiarism? lol. Some of us actually speak “science.”</p>
<p>Sez here, it’s appropriate for about one third of patients, mainly those who do not respond to medical treatment. In case it’s not clear to you, what Wesleyan is researching could result in a major advance in a MEDICAL treatment:</p>
<p><a href=“Meta-analysis of EEG biofeedback in treating epilepsy - PubMed”>Meta-analysis of EEG biofeedback in treating epilepsy - PubMed;
<p>Patients who do respond to medical treatment can benefit from it as well. The 1/3 number owes not to lack of efficacy but to people only trying it when drugs fail them. Medical research largely ignores approaches that activate self-righting mechanisms. I hope the stem-cell research bears fruit, but there already exists a more elegant solution for many epilepsy sufferers. </p>
<p>Your frequent recourse to misdirection and non-sequitur betrays a lack of intellectual honesty. </p>
<p>^I asked you to supply a cite and you were too lazy to do so. Maybe you should practice what you preach…</p>
<p>Part of the theme of this thread has been that colleges change over time. The following are a few numbers from the Preppy Handbook (1980). (The only source I have for older information.) Unfortunately, Wesleyan is not available because it wasn’t listed in the limited (somewhat satirical) categories (The Top Ten, The Runners Up, Out of the League, The Top 10 Drinking Schools).</p>
<p>By SAT verbal score:</p>
<p>Columbia: 670
Amherst: 650
Princeton: 636
Reed: 622
Chicago: 617
Dartmouth: 620
M.I.T.: 625
Williams: 610
Duke: 593
Hamilton: 590
Virginia: 589
Cornell: 580
Colby: 570
Trinity: 570
Vassar: 563
Berkeley: 553
Bowdoin: 550
Connecticut Coll.: 550
NYU: 540
Michigan: 520
UNC: 516
Wheaton (Mass.): 500</p>
<p>Although the book is satirical, the numbers were clearly intended to be accurate. Be aware that these are prior to the 1995 recalibration that would have raised the average verbal score by about 49 points. </p>
<p>I’ll also post by math score if anyone is interested. </p>