@WPIMom my son, husband, and I all really liked Wheaton - I think we came away liking it even more than we had before our visit.
We started by driving up past the Norton Reservoir to Mansfield since that is the way the bus (that students can take) goes. The reservoir was pretty, Mansfield was small but cute, and the train station was there which we wanted S21 to see since that’s how he could get to Boston or Providence (2 stops to Providence…we also visited Providence the night before so he had a sense for where the train dropped off there…while there, we walked around The East End of Providence, the Brown campus, Benefit Street, and up along the river).
It was about a 10 minute drive to get from campus to the train station. Then we headed back towards campus and wanted to check out Bagels and Cream - it’s pretty close to campus, and we thought it might offer an opportunity for an off-campus bite to eat or coffee drink on occasion. The bagel was good, and the place was walkable from campus (and our tour guide actually mentioned the place later when she was talking about some things students like to do).
Then we parked in the visitor lot and walked around campus for almost an hour before our tour. We felt the campus was larger than we’d expected, in a good way. (It wasn’t huge and hard to get around at all…I imagine it starts to feel small after a while, but bigger than we’d thought). There was a nice variety of styles and materials to the buildings, but everything fit together in a cohesive way. The first year housing (aside from Pine) was old and looked less nice than the rest of campus, but we figure it’s a one year rite of passage to get through, and the housing options for upperclassmen seemed nice - some suite style, some beautiful older buildings, some special interest housing. S21 wasn’t phased by the first year housing buildings - he felt them “basic but not ugly.” I’m not sure I’d agree, but I’m not the one going to college (and my freshman dorm in college was ugly and bit bleh…it didn’t affect my enjoyment overall).
Our tour was good - the guide wasn’t as good as our guide at Clark the previous day, but I figure that kind of thing is hit or miss. She was fine and gave him some scoop on some of the best things to eat on campus at which places, etc. During the tour, more and more students were showing up outside to enjoy the nice weather. By the time we left, there were quite a few sitting in small clusters on the green spaces hanging out. We didn’t get to talk to any other students, but the vibe we picked up just be seeing people was of a very comfortable place. Chill. Be who you are. We didn’t get to go inside any buildings (except the Admission Office to use the bathrooms).
We were glad we had walked around before the tour since we went to some of the further parts of campus that the tour didn’t take us. After the tour, we walked for a while in the Wheaton Woods (connected to campus…a trail through the woods that goes out to a firepit and then continues on). We saw students out there on the trail, too, and every one of them said a friendly hello to us before we’d said anything.
It remains on the list (which still includes 4 schools but is down from 9 pre-visit). If I were to guess, I’d say it’s at or near the top of those 4, but there is one S21 hasn’t seen yet which we’ll see in a few weeks. Hope that helps - if you have any specific questions I might be able to answer after having been in the area for a few hours, let me know.
