Ok. I guess all I’m trying to say is nothing about the student body at Wes struck me as unusual or substantially different than most other schools, at least in the Northeast.
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I should add that my wife and I would have been very happy if either of our daughters had chosen Wesleyan. Neither applied- both wanted bigger schools. But we were really impressed.
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Deleted.
Regarding studio art at Wesleyan: Glenn Ligon, Rachel Harrison, and Vincent Fecteau–all mid-career artists who are arguably among the top 25 or so artists of their generation–are all grads. Not sure how much that tells us about studio art at Wes today, but it’s an astounding record, one I don’t think can be matched by any similar institution. The arts, at a very high level, just seem to be in Wesleyan’s bones.
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That’s interesting. I had no idea.
While most Wes and Williams go onto graduate schools - Williams has more a pre-professional vibe. If you’re a New Yorker, I’d compare Williams to the UES and Wesleyan to Greenwich Village. You can’t go wrong with either academically but I bet there is a neighborhood that you feel more comfortable in.
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Good analogy and well said.
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In 2022 NYC, Wes is more Brooklyn than Greenwich Village 
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I haven’t been to Brooklyn in years so will defer to you on this. I hear it’s changed quite a bit!
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From your lips to God’s ears!
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Haha. I can see that but you and I would both agree it’s not the Upper East Side 
- god forbid.
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I will, although those of us who live east of Lex and north of 79th St might feel a tad offended (Not to mention that there are plenty of UESers at Wes and many Brooklynites, UWSers and downtowners at Williams, many of whom went to public schools – shock, horror!)
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It’s a good reminder for perspective: none of these places is, in actual every day to day life, a monolithic experience in a monolithic culture driven by an entirely homogeneous population of people.
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Very well said! Bottom line is that both Williams and Wes will teach this important lesson about perspective. Yet, I don’t want to dismiss the different vibes of these two schools — however abstract the idea of “vibe” may be. I went to a private school in the UES (uniform and all) and had a choice between Williams and Wes. I choose Wes mainly because I felt it was more diverse than Williams. Some of this may simply be because Wes has a larger undergraduate population (for a SLAC). But in my years at Wes, I never felt the pressure of having to dress up for events - and I’ve been successful in business (so far) not having to put on suit. I took classes ranging from playwriting to religion to microbiology without any of my friends or teachers suggest that I was unfocused. Would l have liked Williams just as much? Maybe. But I can say with absolute confidence that my experience at Wes was freeing, wonderful and full of color.
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Yes, the freedom part seems to resonate across the generations, IMO.
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Things must have drastically changed in terms of privileging valuing and vaunting men’s over women’s accomplishments since i was there. I have a suspicion, admittedly unfounded. that the disparity of funding and staffing in your daughter’s sport has perhaps inclined you to look for other examples that support this impression of the school. When I was there in the 90s, the school, if anything, had a strongly female (not feminine) vibe compared to my first school, Bowdoin, which was then about as male centric as a coed school could be. Or that’s how it felt. I revile bro culture, but if you’re looking at NESCAC schools, I don’t think you’ll find it predominates at Wesleyan any more than at the other schools and perhaps markedly less.
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@wesleyan97 I think you meant to reply to me. If so, I do agree with you that Wes doesn’t have anything close to a dominant bro culture. My point was that, while many people would expect the entire campus to be entirely hostile to bro culture such that you’d never find a trace of it there, you do find it in pockets. But I agree it’s likely less than at most other NESCACs and certainly is not predominant. As to what drove my perceptions, you may be right. It’s hard to say now a few years on from the kid graduating.
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also second in the most recent list from academic influence.
i guess us snooz is not a fan of middletown…
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From the Academic Influence website:
Our measure of concentrated influence looks specifically at the ratio of combined influence scores for faculty and alumni to size of the undergraduate student body. So defined, concentrated influence is relevant to undergraduates, with higher concentrated influence indicating greater accessibility of undergraduates to influential faculty. Concentrated Influence™ | Academic Influence
50 Best Liberal Arts Colleges and Universities Ranked for Students | Academic Influence
Interestingly, Wesleyan falls to #3 when small tech colleges (cough, Caltech) are added to the mix:
50 Best Small Colleges and Universities Ranked for Students in 2023 | Academic Influence
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