<p>Hello all. Hope you've been getting lots of good college news and are not having too difficult a time selecting your future alma mater (or are enjoying spring break, if you're in college).</p>
<p>I've recently had the great luck of being admitted to the three above schools, but I am having quite the hard time deciding where I'd like to go. I will be visiting Swarthmore in a few weeks, and if I can find the money, will be visiting Wesleyan and Chicago as well.</p>
<p>That being said, would any knowledgeable posters be willing to help me sort out my colleges? I'll write a little bit about myself below to give you an idea of what makes me tick:</p>
<p>*Biracial male (Thai/Jewish)
*Middle class family and have to say that I feel most comfortable in an environment that is not wrapped up in totally upper-class values and does not encourage people to flaunt their wealth or possessions
*Financial aid is a large factor in my decision
*Interested in studying either English, Film Studies (edge to Wes), or a social science (psychology, most so)
*Want small classes, intense discussions in and outside of class, BUT a down-to-earth, not pretentious or ivory tower intellectual life (As much as I love philosophizing and debating, I don't want to be around people who take themselves too seriously or always feel the need to top others)
*Passionate about writing, discussion, learning but I have extreme difficulty sitting down and working for more than four or five hours at a time
*Not a huge party guy or a big sports fan but would love to experience some fun parties and have a diverse, lively, exciting social scene
*I like Wesleyan's lack of core curriculum in that I want a degree of academic freedom, but I don't know much about Swarthmore's requirements and Chicago's distribution requirements intimidate me a little (though I love the idea of being an intellectually rounded person)</p>
<p>You sound like you were made for Wes, frankly.</p>
<p>If you can’t do hours of tedious work at a time (I have trouble with this too, I’m embarrassed to say, though I also love discussing and writing), Swarthmore is NOT for you. People on the Swat board will try and tell you otherwise, but I’ve had many friends and family members go there and really collapse emotionally from the sheer volume of workload and general academic intensity and pressure. One graduated last year and posted as his Facebook status that he “survived” – this is one of the most intelligent and hard-working people I know, thrilled to have gotten out alive. I’m sure students aren’t outwardly competitive with one another, but the character of the school and its students definitely lends itself to a pressure-cooker, workaholic environment. I’m all for intellectualism, but I didn’t want to be crushed by massive amounts of work and intensity. Not to be a hater.</p>
<p>I found that Wes’ environment was the least WASPy of the LACs I visited. Maybe it has something to do with drawing kids from New York, but the flavor of Wes was very diverse, and people were very conscious about not flaunting their wealth, if they had it (along with being down-to-earth, friendly, passionate, vibrant, and genuinely and unintimidatingly intellectual). I felt like the slightly larger size made Wes feel overall much livelier and “buzzier” than any other school I visited – there was just so much going on and everyone was so involved and happy and interested.
Wesleyan has a bigger Jewish population than either of those two other schools. It did make me feel more at home, even though I’m not really a religious person at all. I have no idea whether that is at all important to you.
Like you said, Wes has an incredible film studies department too.
Kids at Wes are a lot of fun and there are many parties and many other events (there are themed program houses which are required to throw a certain number of events per semester, so there are lots of non-party events thrown into the scene as a result, and many, many performances as well, as well as a Film Series and random things like Iron Chef competitions and stuff. You definitely won’t be alone in not wanting to tailgate the football game). Wesleyan’s not-focused-on-alcohol-and-parties social scene was one of the things that attracted me to it.</p>
<p>I don’t know anything at all about UChicago, so I can’t help you there, but you sound like a really really good fit for Wes. The reviews and student interviews at U N I G O .com are really good and accurate, I think, so maybe check those out if you haven’t seen them.</p>
<p>Good luck! And congrats on all those acceptances!</p>
<p>One of my teachers was a Swat grad and she explained that Swat is really academically centered and cutthroat whereas I think Wes is more holistic. Also, in terms of small classes, swarthmore and wesleyan definitely have a leg up over Chicago. I agree with flying pig thoug, looking at your self - description, it looks like your def more wes material</p>
<p>I think Swarthmore sounds like a good fit for you, actually. It fits everything on your list of criteria. Contrary to what flying<em>pig wrote, you don’t have to sit down for 4 or 5 hours at a time to get your work done. I certainly don’t. In previous posts, several posters on the Swarthmore board (including myself) disagreed with what flying</em>pig had to say about Swarthmore, because all of us found what he said to be inaccurate. For example, he cites the guy on Facebook who said that he ‘survived.’ I think, first of all, that he was being sarcastic. Second, I think that he was being self-deprecating, which a lot of Swatties like to do. That’s kind of the character that a lot of Swatties have at Swat. We like to poke fun at ourselves jokingly. I don’t think the “survived” comment is anything to think too much about. Most Swarthmore grads, I think, overwhelmingly, enjoyed their experience at Swarthmore.</p>
<p>To correct flying<em>pig again, yes, if you stay here too long without getting out, you might get this pressure-cooker feel, but it can be avoided by taking a walk in the woods and walking around the Ville, or getting outside Swarthmore once in a while. There are only some people who are always like, “God, I’m so stressed!!! I have so much work to do!!!” Yeah, I know a couple of people like that, but I think most people enjoy the work they do and have the time management skills to complete it without too much difficulty. You might get a lot of work at Swarthmore, but it will all be manageable. Having so much work that it’s physically impossible to complete it would be counterproductive to your learning, and professors at Swat are aware of that. So I felt obligated to correct some of the things that flying</em>pig has raised.</p>
<p>I also want to comment on what the OP said about the idea that at Chicago you’ll become “intellectually rounded.” First, I think the courses you’ll take at Chicago will be like those you’ll take at Swarthmore. What Swat doesn’t have is a Core Curriculum that includes a class of some of the Great Books. You have to keep in mind that you’ll only be reading a small number of the Great Books, and that you won’t be liberally educated just by doing that. The Great Books is only part of a liberal education. I just don’t want you to think that at UChicago you’ll become an intellectually rounded person, whereas at Wesleyan and Swarthmore you won’t.</p>
<p>hey, i go to wesleyan and i think you’d really like it here. wherever you go, you’re going to have to buckle down and work for hours sometimes. i do it basically everyday. it depends on what classes you take. </p>
<p>i study film, and there is no place better to study film than wesleyan. we also have great english and social sciences classes (i’ve taken some of both). the social environment at wesleyan is what you make it. some people party a lot, some a little, and some never. you’ll definitely be able to find people who share your sensibilities when it comes to socializing. </p>
<p>as far as pretension goes, you’re going to meet pretentious people at any of these schools. for the most part, i think that students at wesleyan are really down to earth. i have had many fascinating intellectual conversations with people, but we aren’t trying to one up each other.</p>
<p>all that said, you should definitely visit wesleyan during wesfest or some other weekend. walk around, check out the libraries, figure out if you can see yourself here. i’ve visited lots of friends at other colleges, and i’m always struck by how much i miss wesleyan. i think it’s just a great place to get an education. i actually know someone who transfered here from UChicago and is really happy with the decision. also, i was strongly considering swarthmore when i was in high school, but for me it seemed to small and i felt that would hinder my academic experience.</p>
<p>I’m not going to argue with what dchow has said, because obviously he/she has first-hand experience and I do not, but I’d like to just clarify that my “I survived” friend was not being sarcastic or self-deprecating, and this one comment was not what I based my views of Swarthmore on, it was only one example of the general sentiment that I know he and others felt, based on many conversations with friends and family I know who have gone there. It’s not like I saw this facebook status and decided that Swarthmore was really intense; I already knew about its intensity from many friends’ experiences and I just happened to choose that anecdote to use here on CC to illustrate that.
I’m sure the OP would have an amazing time at either school, I just thought I would share my perception of the workload aspect of the school.</p>
<p>Thanks so much to all of you guys. It’s EXTREMELY helpful to hear some opinions from actual students of Swat and Wes. I’m going to visit both schools and see if Wes will give me some more FA (gack it would be impossible for me to go on their current offer). I’m going to visit Swarthmore and see what it’s like, but I must say that Wes film studies dpt, social scene, and general structure (or lack thereof, perhaps) are making me swoon a little.
dchow: Do you think Swarthmore has the potential to be a socially exciting place? I know that that is a pretty subjective question, but my idea of socially exciting is:
Easy to have conversations with lots of people, access to great musical and cinematic events, some wild, booze-soaked debauchery if wanted, protests and marches to join in on and/or start, and the ability to meet enough members of the opposite gender that you won’t feel terrified of ensuing gossip trains and silly high school drama.</p>
<p>What eurydiced said about Wesleyan, I think, largely applies to Swarthmore, too, except I don’t know much about film studies here. I think that before you decide on a college, you absolutely should visit it beforehand. So if Wesleyan sounds really good, I really encourage you to visit and try to stay overnight if you can, so I’m glad you’re going to visit. </p>
<p>It’s hard to answer your question. I think that whether it’s easy to have conversations with lots of people really depends on how you interact with people here. I think that it will help to have an outgoing character and to get involved with a few extracurricular activities where you’ll develop good friendships. Then you’ll become friends with their friends and you’ll get a good circle of friends, so I think it’ll be easy to have lots of friends who’ll want to talk to you that way. It depends on what you mean by “great” musical and cinematic events. Once in a while there are concerts and things. Every week there’s a movie screening if alcohol-filled parties aren’t your thing. What do you mean by cinematic events? You don’t really get, for example, student-created films showing often. I guess I just don’t know what you mean by cinematic events. We do have theater productions from time to time. I’ve been to a few and I’ve found them OK, but I wish they stuck more closely to the playwright’s actual intentions without abstracting the plays so much. But I’ve enjoyed them. And yes, you can definitely find booze-soaked parties, but at Swarthmore most students who drink get, I think, intoxicated, but not too a dangerous extent. People here aren’t going to start protests about anything, because protests aren’t necessarily an effective way to solve problems. A few months back (when the economy started to get really bad) some Swatties staged a protest calling for more financial aid (as if our financial aid sucks!), but that didn’t do anything but create more confusion. But Swarthmore is certainly an “activisty” kind of place. I know some friends who are into engineering and who went to Washington, D.C. to protest that a coal plant be shut down. At Swarthmore, activism is seen in panels, symposia, and sometimes movie screenings. For example, yesterday there was a Sager symposium (which occurs yearly) calling for queer rights. It’s a pretty big deal. Here’s an article about it:
[Sager</a> Symposium Expands Meaning of Queer Activism :: The Daily Gazette](<a href=“http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2009/3/25/sager-expands-meaning-of-activism/]Sager”>http://daily.swarthmore.edu/2009/3/25/sager-expands-meaning-of-activism/)
I think that reading it will give you better insight into Swarthmore’s ‘character,’ if it has one. You can definitely meet people of the opposite gender. I think people here are pretty open to conversation as long as they’re not complete strangers. I mean, you usually wouldn’t walk up to someone you just don’t know and try to have a meal with them.</p>
<p>A history professor here had this to say, and it might help you:</p>
<p>“I was an undergraduate at Wesleyan in the 1980s, and I think it is fair to say that in terms of social conscience, in terms of the imperative to “do good”, it is very similar to Swarthmore except with more drugs and fewer Quakers. I left Wesleyan with the same hunger that many Swatties experience, the desire to make the world a better place.”</p>
<p>Most of this description applies to me, too. U Chicago was always at the top of my list (so was Vassar, not Swarthmore), but I chose to apply ED to Wesleyan. In my visits and research I found that Wes offers just as much interest in discussion and debate, and the academic freedom drew me in even more – in retrospect, the U Chicago core probably isn’t for me, and is certainly not a prerequesite to be intellectualy well-rounded. My main academic interests include English, American Studies, music, and maybe even Film Studies – all of which Wesleyan is known for. </p>
<p>Anyway, good luck with your decision; all your choices are great.</p>
<p>Chicago, Swarthmore, and Wesleyan are all great schools - you can’t possibly suffer THAT badly at any one of them. </p>
<p>That said…</p>
<p>Chicago and Swat (I didn’t apply to either in the end but almost did) would attract more of a self-consciously intellectual-type crowd, as in, being intellectual is the main element in how they think of themselves and in how they deal with people. Wesleyan attracts a less self-consciously intellectual crowd; people here tend to, for better or worse and in the most generalized sense (exceptions abound), be less bright. The social atmosphere here is not particularly cerebral, nor are most people conspicuously intelligent. Some are, most aren’t. This is a factual statement born out by SAT scores/GPA as well as plenty of firsthand experience, so don’t bother flaming me. </p>
<p>HOWEVER</p>
<p>That carries the corollary that social life here is very active considering Wesleyan’s location in the absolute middle of nowhere - people get out more than they do at UChicago or Swat. Sorry, this is a fact, I visited both, and one of my best friends here is applying to transfer to both UChicago AND Swat (for the very reason that he doesn’t like Wesleyan’s too-active social environment); thus I have some comparative perspective on this issue. It is rare that I cannot find a party when I feel like going to one. Bands come to campus like 3x a week, including famous acts like RJD2. There’s 3000+ kids here. If your social life blows, try harder; it’s almost impossible for increased effort in this regard to not pay off. You’ll be **** drunk in somebody’s woodframe shaking your booty to Britney Spears before you can even say “it’s the weekend’?!?”</p>
<p>ALSO</p>
<p>The fact that you are a film major will make your life at Wesleyan excellent, for the reason that Wesleyan is a much more artsy campus than either Swat or Chicago, and film is, from what I can tell, the flagship arts major here. Wesleyan has a massive film community, of both majors and people who just like to watch movies, so you will fit right in; also, the major carries significant cachet in and of itself. I mean if you’re going to study Political Science or something go to Chicago, but come to Wesleyan for film</p>
<p>Haha I think it’s hilarious how heated that last post sounds. Blame it on the caffeine, I’m a little twitchy right now…but seriously, if you’re trying to major in film, I doubt Swat or Chicago can possibly be better than Wesleyan</p>
<p>Yeah. I’d probably agree. I’ve met a few people who’ve gone to Swat, and it’s not like they’re ultra competitive with others, but just more with themselves. They really study MUCH, MUCH more than what you would expect from an averager Wesleyan kid.</p>
<p>Then again, the atmospheres in both universities are very different. I suggest you define what you’re priority is for your next year. Once you know your priorities, choosing a University will be much easier.</p>
<p>I think I <em>will</em> disagree with you, MrPimpateer. (Sorry that seems to happen so often). One thing that I always hear people agree on when they describe Wes is that people enjoy having intellectual discussions outside of class. I don’t know what you’re talking about with regard to SAT and GPA, as both of these are obviously very high at Wesleyan.
I do think that people at Swat are more self-conscious of this (which is one of the reasons I didn’t like it – it seemed ostentatious and like everyone was interjecting Latin into daily speech to show how intellectual they were), but I don’t think Wes students are less bright/intellectual. I had a few good debates even on the single night of my visit.
U N I G O, which is compiled of student reviews, also gives Wesleyan an 8/10 for “intellectual life”, which is tied with or higher than any other school I looked at, including many Ivies. Wesleyan is also a top producer of PhDs (says Wikipedia).
I’ve heard, also, that most students definitely stay on campus for the weekend. Your perception of Middletown obviously depends on your perspective – I found it very urban and city-ish compared to what I’m used to (NC), but apparently MrPimpateer feels that it’s in the middle of nowhere. So there you go.
Your experience is, at any school, largely based off of the crowd you hang out with, so take MrPimpateer’s (and anyone else’s) advice with that in mind.
I definitely do agree, like I’ve already said, that the atmosphere at Swat is very intense.</p>
<p>Also, frankly, I think the schools are a lot more similar that we’re pretending they are. They all overlap and many students at one could have easily ended up at another. We’re not comparing Wes to Arizona. So keep that in mind.</p>
<p>For the majority of Wesleyan’s student population Middletown plays a very minor role in social life, said minor role consisting specifically of 2 main events - Bar Night (Wednesdays) which is mostly attended by seniors anyway (not underclassmen), as well as going out to eat at Thai Gardens or something and maybe catching a movie at Destinta every 1/2 year or so. That’s barely anything. Middletown is the middle of nowhere. It is really not somewhere that you as a college student are going to be spending much time unless you’re either working or volunteering there. </p>
<p>As for intellectual life…</p>
<p>This is not Big State U. Most people here are not stupid. Intelligent discourse can be had if you know where to look. </p>
<p>BUT</p>
<p>That’s just it, you have to know where to look. Intelligent discourse and intellectual atmosphere are really things that you have to find/create for yourself here, among a specific group of friends or people whom you’ve cultivated for a while. It is not a regular or characteristic feature of the environment here. I do not find myself carrying on discussions from my classes with classmates after the classes have ended, nor do I find myself talking about the academic content of my classes that often. I do have a lot of intelligent conversations, but that’s because I value intellectual discourse a lot - and I took the time to cultivate a group of friends who all seem to share that trait. I don’t have these types of conversations with anybody, nor would it be possible to have them with just anybody at Wesleyan. </p>
<p>The take away message is that Wesleyan’s atmosphere is not as superficially intellectual as Swat’s or Chicago’s or indeed probably any of the Ivies. People here tend to be more socially-oriented than students at those other places, and it carries over in that discourse is consequently less enlightened. I’m sorry if that somehow makes you feel bad. It doesn’t make me feel bad, because I’m perfectly happy doing my own thing. I get plenty of stimulating intellectual discourse with the friends with whom I expect to have it with (no dirty joke intended); I can have more superficial interactions with the rest of my friends/campus and not feel bad or inadequate or as if I’m dumbing myself down. My feeling is that at the other schools mentioned braininess is both more flaunted and more apparent; again, that’s fine with me. I’m perfectly confident in my own intelligence, and for me Wesleyan’s other benefits (see my above post) compensate for its ostensible shortcoming in this regard.</p>
<p>Great responses, you guys. I have to say that the impression I get of Wesleyan from just reading Wesleyan student posts is a good one. There’s a certain, almost inexplicable aura that Wesleyan gives off of being unpretentiously, almost unconsciously wise. And social intelligence–which Wesleyan students seem to have–is a valid and important form of intelligence.</p>
<p>Problem is, Wesleyan is giving me a (pardon my French) crappy financial aid package (Wesleyan has calculated my family’s EFC to be over three times what FAFSA calculated it to be.) I’m going to try to work with the FA office, but in this financial climate I’m fearing the worst. <em>Sigh</em>, I guess we’ll see what happens.</p>
<p>kramerica91 – don’t give up. i wrote a letter of explanation to wesleyan when i was admitted explaining that the financial aid package wasn’t sufficient. i was admitted ED, and apparently it’s really hard to get them to budge on financial aid in that situation, but it worked. give them figures, like “X is the FAFSA EFC and Y is the Wesleyan EFC, sup with the discrepancy?” except make it sound more professional and thought-out.</p>