I have been accepted into both schools, and am trying to decide between wittenberg university and denison university. While visiting denison i got a really nice feeling that it was “the school for me” but i am worried about what the campus life is like. Is there a nice mix of people on campus? I would consider myself kind of “alternative” and have never really been one to fit in with preppy kids. Are people mostly accepting, and do you ever find that the smallness of the campus gets boring? thanks so much!
We were very impressed with the diversity of the students at Denison, and the fact that different groups seemed to co-exist and mingle comfortably. Denison has something like 20% first generation college students, and has a high degree of socio-economic diversity. At the same time, there are plenty – like at many other LACs - of upper middle class white kids.
My kid has met with art and music faculty, and is very impressed with the students, faculty and resources. There are artistic types, athletic types, nerdy types, we pretty much saw it all, after 3 visits to campus.
Is there perfect intermingling and cooperation? Probably not. We listened to President Weinberg’s Invocation speech, where he emphasized that Denison doesn’t want just to have diversity on paper, it wants to be a community which embraces that diversity. While it may be a work in progress, it certainly seems like a neat community.
@opalfairie I’m a recent grad. I don’t know anything about Wittenberg, but as far as the Ohio LACs go, Denison is considered the most preppy. While there are quite a lot of preppy kids on campus, that stereotype is kind of a vestige of the past and I always felt like there was a good mix of students. Definitely a fair share of alternative kids and hipsters.
In terms of whether the campus is too small, I never felt like it was. The other school that I was seriously considering only had like 1600 students, though, so in comparison Denison seemed quite large. A small school was definitely the sort of environment that I wanted and that I would thrive in, but I know some people who felt differently. It really is a matter of personal preference. But Denison is also only like 30 minutes from Columbus and the school provides transportation there regularly, so there are definitely options for getting off campus.