I don’t think endowment/student was ever an “official” variable in the U.S. News formula.
Need-based aid includes institutional awards/grants which have nothing to do with the federal government. That’s what was confusing me.
Again, you have to be careful to compare apples to apples. A school’s total need-based aid population includes any family that takes out a federally-backed loan, a necessity nowadays (as opposed to when Dinosaurs Roamed the Earth) limited almost exclusively to middle-class families, thanks to widespread no-loan policies.
So, yes, Wesleyan is probably less “middle-class” than it was, certainly compared to my day. But Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Carleton and Haverford are all bunched together when it comes to the percentage of their student bodies who receive Pell grants (which are federally funded.)
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lol
you weren’t an english major i hope!!
regarding financial aid, more than one student currently @ wes making wesfriends & whatnot is @ wes because the aid offer from one of those ‘rich’ schools with ‘double’ the endowment was awful while the wesleyan offer was almost comically generous.
and the converse is true: some students won’t get to have wesfriends because their fa award was way better somewhere else.
the fact is that even schools without ‘merit’ awards often do make financial aid awards better or worse for certain students depending on how much they want them to attend, including all those ‘rich’ schools.
in alotta ways it’s an ugly business, especially because it becomes a game where one side has all the power and the other side hasta take it.
but that’s racing.
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regarding pell grants: purportedly 34% of undergraduates nationwide get pell grants, so that’s 34% of people who applied, were accepted, and enrolled. (who does not apply and who cannot manage to enroll and thus does not get the pell grant is prob an important question that we will ignore cuz that’s how we role.)
according to ussnooze, the ‘top 25’ lacs go from 22% pell grant enjoyers, amherst & swathmore, down to 11%, washingon n lee, with wesleyan @ 15%.
this seems pretty awful–and it is!–until you look at the big schools, the famous schools, the richest national universities and see a whole different kinda awful.
on the national private universities, columbia is 1st with 23% pell grant enjoyers, and georgetown is the bottom at 11%.
it sure looks like the ‘top’ liberal arts institutions do the same (poor) job of enrolling low family income students as the big kids, especially since the civilian name recognition of even those liberal arts schools is essentially nothing compared to the most famous universities.
Public universities (which by definition include community colleges) do a much better job of recruiting Pell grant recipients than private, four-year residential colleges for a number of reasons: 1) Costs; a Pell grant of $7,000 goes a lot further at a UC-Berkeley than it does at Wesleyan where it is basically a token. And, 2) Travel; it’s really hard to convince low-income kids to travel far from home which puts NESCAC colleges in particular, in a geographic hole.
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of course, but the point is that NONE of the elite schools large or small, near or far, do a good job enrolling pell grant eligible people, for lots of reasons, even tho they can afford to support those low income students way better anyone else.
on a related topic: no loans.
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Fear not. I got Wes to #3! What say you @cquin85 ? Does this ranking look better? 
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And this one doesn’t have a football field in the middle of campus😀
@circuitrider or @cquin85 please correct the record.
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Maybe we can get the two REAL Wesleyans together and make the college Wesleyan’s coordinate school. You know, because that worked out so well for so many other women’s colleges!
As to the field, can confirm that only Middletown Wesleyan has a football field in the middle of campus!
NIki Haley face. A visual response with many meanings.
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I’ve held my tongue for far too long re: Wes’s football field location.
I think it’s great! I love football, and having the field smack-dab in the middle of campus makes it accessible/convenient to virtually all Cardinals (human and avian).
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I always knew there was a reason I liked you so much.
Here’s the thing: everybody else has a field either on the edge of campus or long walk or car ride away. You don’t see much around the field.; it’s like everybody else’s. At Wes, you see this:
and this:
It’s no Camp Randall, but then again the football being played on it, while still football, is a whole other animal.
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That is so cool.
Camp Randall would be a monstrosity there, with its height and bulk. lol (I find mirth in absurd notions)
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I bet those games kept the local dentist(s) pretty busy.
I do think the Wes’ setup is nice. Everyone else overstated. Off the top of my head, Davidson and Georgetown are a couple examples with their fields right in the heart of campus (though Davidson is building a new, bigger/nicer stadium that will be closer to the edge). I’m sure there’s others – that’s just top of mind.
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Georgetown, true, though you have to walk down a hill and you certainly don’t walk across it to get anywhere. It’s not as organically part of the center of campus the way Andrus is. It’s as much a complex in the middle of campus as it is a field. But, yes, it does offer a viewshed of various campus buildings. It is, though, an entirely different, busy and lesser aesthetic IMHO.
Never been to Davidson. Oregon State has a baseball field pretty much (but not quite) in the center of campus.
Also, by every one else, I meant the NESCAC. Even Bowdoin’s cozy set up doesn’t include competition fields right in the middle of campus, though I like the field complex.
I should add that Conn soccer is played on Freeman Field, which is a similar setup to Andrus. Conn was founded by Wes alumni so maybe there was some inspiration for that practice.
If Conn had football and baseball, maybe they’d play those games there as well. They don’t, so they don’t.
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