<p>Hockeykid, you write: “many Wesleyan students appearing out of mainstream”</p>
<p>May I respectfully ask the nature of your attachment to this so-called “mainstream”? Maybe it would behoove you, whichever college you attend, to question this basic implicit value that you hold. Isn’t that one of the major goals of college attendance – to expand your thinking?</p>
<p>Good luck, wherever you wind up!</p>
<p>(by the way, you write: “As a result, Wesleyan has become, over time, a niche school with admission overlaps at Brown, NYU, Vassar, Oberlin and Bard and not with the Ivies” — Am I insane or is Brown not an Ivy??)</p>
<p>(sorry to continue “debate” mode – shackwacky from Hurricane Irene)</p>
<p>Just to let all of you know: just by reading this “debate” I suppose you could call it, and with all these people counteracting HockeyKid’s opposing views on Wesleyan has made me want to go to this school even more. Yes, there have been people who said that Wesleyan isn’t up to par against Amherst and Williams anymore, but reading these responses contradicts what they are saying. (: Thank you for that.</p>
<p>Amherst and Williams are doing this because they appear to be in an eternal battle for the #1 USNWR LAC ranking. Building improvements and construction raises your ranking with USNWR. It’s sad but true. So if Amherst is going to build, Williams feels compelled to do the same. With great facilities you can brag and attract more top students, which increases selectivity, which keeps you at the top of the rankings. It’s a ridiculous “game.” It does not in any way prove the quality of the academics or the campus experience with fellow students and faculty will be better at those schools than at Wesleyan, or even Muhlenberg for that matter.</p>
<p>Right, I know an adult who went to Wesleyan in the 70’s–a generation ago, as you spoke of. She said it reeked of pot and nobody had anything better to do than listen to the Grateful Dead all day, which bored her so much that she graduated early. That said, she got a fantastic education and went on to do a bunch of really interesting things with her life. Here’s her advice to me: “You would have hated it in the 70’s but it looks like a cool place now.”</p>
<p>If by “improve” you meant “consistently come off as extremely preppy,” I guess Williams and Amherst did do that more than Wesleyan.</p>
<p>Why oh why is it necessary to have such arguments? Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan are all wonderful schools. We visited each of them with our S and would have been very pleased if he attended any one of them. Yes, they are different. Isn’t that what we all want? Should all LACs be the same? Isn’t this how students make their decisions? Our S elected to go to another LAC (yes, highly ranked). It was, in his opinion, a better fit or match. It too was different in other ways and those were the ways that mattered to our S. He is very pleased and I am sure the students who selected Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan are as well.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is not on our list, but I do admire the school very much. So as someone not invested in this, I ask of all colleges: why not put business/marketing/communications students in tour guide work-study jobs (not volunteers)? These organizations pay a lot of money for brochures, mailings, travel, and staff to market their college, and then they zero out on quality control with inconsistent tour guides. Similar issue with overnight hosts. People should seldom if ever cross a school off because of the tour guide.<br>
It’s Marketing 101.</p>
<p>^^I agree that tour guides should be given work-study status (if they don’t have it already), but, I think you have to be careful to avoid creating a manufactured image. And, the reality is that Wesleyan doesn’t have any business/marketing/communications majors. There are plenty of “mainstream” looking people on campus, (including quite a few who major in the arts) and very often you do see them leading tours. The flip-side is that it’s great that Wesleyan attracts all kinds ofpeople who feel committed enough to want to be tour guides.</p>
<p>That being said, there’s no excuse for a tour guide to be giving incorrect information or working when they do not feel up to the job or being rude.</p>
<p>^ “I think you have to be careful to avoid creating a manufactured image.”</p>
<p>We visited at least 20 schools for my S. Every tour guide followed a very precise script. The more competent ones were able to enrich that script but it was always there. Of course there were significant variations in the presentations. There were a couple of tour guides that became lost if you asked a question they were not prepared for. There were others that shared rich, personal experiences. But it was always around a script.</p>
<p>I just saw this thread. Having just left my son at Wesleyan, his top choice after visiting about 20 schools on both coasts (he was an ED applicant), I did want to respond to the following:</p>
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<p>Goodness…I couldn’t have had a more opposite view. I was quite taken with the beauty of many of the buildings on campus (especially Olin Library, inside and out). Didn’t really feel that anything was tattered, and not a desultory kid among the many I spoke to that day…as for out of the mainstream, I say FANTASTIC if so since that is one of the appeals of Wesleyan to the many kids that pick it…but I don’t really know what the “mainstream” really is these days anyway.</p>
<p>And different strokes for different folks…for instance. my son absoultely hated Cornell, while our neighbor’s girl is happily attending there, HER first choice.</p>
<p>A couple of thoughts. After two campus tours, I felt that Wesleyan had a terrific campus and was thrilled about my freshman attending such a fine institution. However, after dropping my freshman off, I think I understand what the OP is talking about. The freshmen dorms close to the center of campus appear to be in appropriate, if not very good, condition. However, some of the dorms farther away from the center of campus are in disrepair. Overt signs include paint peeling from exterior windows and no lawn or sidewalk care. While I love all that Wesleyan has to offer, I am not sure why these other living facilities are not kept up. I also was a bit disappointed to learn that freshmen may be forced into singles far from central campus. While it may not have changed the decision to apply, I think we would have liked to know about that possibility before applying.</p>
<p>It sounds like you are referring to the wood-frames. It’s true that a certain number of them are going to be in need of a paint job at any given time. There are ~200 of them, all formerly private residences with streets and lawns – and quite a few with wooden shingles. You can imagine the complexity of trying to keep them all in tip-top condition. A giant dormitory would be much, much easier to maintain and less costly but what Wesleyan is trying to do is not only maintain the residential feel of the surrounding neighborhood, but to also give upper-classmen a chance to live like adults before graduating into the cold cruel world. Rest assured that each house is on a regular rotating schedule to receive a fresh coat of paint; the lawns should be mowed by Physical Plant on a regular basis. Not sure who’s responsible for sidewalk repairs, Wesleyan or the City of Middletown. Does anyone know?</p>
<p>Actually, it was a dormitory. I was referring, not to street sidewalks, but to the walkways to and from the dorm as well as the grassy areas in between. Even a younger sibling commented on this. I wish to underscore, however, that the central part campus was well kept up and quite lovely. I also think the downtown of Middletown is very nice, with lots of indoor/outdoor dining opportunities within walking distance of campus.</p>
<p>Having been inside the Butterfield Colleges residential halls last week, which I think is what gointhruaphase may be referring to, he is correct in that there is some paint a-peelin’ on a few window sills down there, and some of the grassy areas were dried out in spots. However, inside the dorms, I found them to be immaculate throughout, and everything inside in very good repair. I will also say that I visited “the Butts” (as they are called these days) in April 2010, and the exterior had been freshly painted, and yet a year prior to that, the paint had been a-peelin’ at that time too. This may be a question of either the paintability (is that a word?) of the exterior surfaces of these window sills or the paint itself. I would rather Wesleyan spend money on financial aid and faculty and staff wages and salaries instead of paint. And by the way, Hurricane Irene had passed through that area on the Sunday before Arrival Day, and you should have seen the condition of the grounds the following day. Facilities did an impressive job of picking up every fallen limb throughout campus in just two days. Perhaps touchup painting was one of the last-minute tasks they could not get to because of the storm’s aftermath.</p>
<p>As far as “freshmen being forced into singles” in the area of the Butts, my son has a single there and LOVES it. After a week, he loves everything about Wesleyan, even the drizzly rain that has persisted for his first few days of classes.</p>
<p>^^I guess I never realized the Butterfield (I can’t bring myself to call them by that other name – I’ve met the man’s children) window sills were made of wood; I would have assumed they were metal of some sort.</p>
<p>I don’t remember, John, whether those exterior window areas are wood or metal, but they were peeling, but like I said, after the devastating couple days of Hurricane Irene pelting the Middletown area just before first-year students arrived last Wednesday, I was more impressed with how great the campus looked compared to the storm damage you could see all around Middletown.</p>
<p>I was stunned the first time I heard my son use the word “Butts” to refer to the colleges President Butterfield founded back in the fifties. I tried to tell my son the story about how Victor Butterfield’s vision of creating Oxford-style colleges within the larger Wesleyan was the primary reason I applied to Wes back in the day, but he just gave me that “you-just-don’t-get-it” look. It was a funny moment, one that reminded me that he is going to have, as I have been telling him all year, his very own “Wesleyan Experience”. You would be, as I was, further horrified to know that someone actually painted a wall mural inside one of the Butterfield Colleges (I think it may be close to where the old CSS Lounge used to be) with words something like, “Welcome to the Butts”. When the College of Letters moves to College Row into the site of the old squash courts in January, I am wondering just how much of that Butterfield Colleges history will be remembered. President Vic’s idea of course was that students would live where they went to class in these structures quite removed from the central campus, and with CSS already housed in the Public Affairs Center, and COL moving out soon, that will all be gone. </p>
<p>The upside is that COL will now occupy a very prominent place on campus and with President Roth’s staunch defense of the critical and practical role of the humanities in today’s world (and his strong support of COL and with his wife teaching within COL), it may turn out to be a good thing after all.</p>
<p>^^Yes, speaking of “What has happened to Wesleyan”, I was talking with Prof. Moon a few years ago during a campus visit and he told me that most of the furniture from the old CSS lounge, those wooden benches and tapestry, the oriental rug that all gave it the look of an Oxford sitting room, were sold when CSS made the move to PAC. Its present occupants may not realize it, but, Martin Luther King paid a visit to CSS in that lounge.</p>
<p>My son is in the “Butts” (which my family ignorantly pronounced as BUTTES, as in little hills, until set straight on move-in day!) He is in a double with great trees outside his window; lots of space in his dorm room so no big complaints there. He can also roll out of bed and pretty quickly be at the Science Center or Olin, so all is good. My husband and I didn’t notice the peeling paint…too many other things to take in while moving him into his dorm I guess.</p>