Your student's experience at Wesleyan University

Parents Forum
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My daughter is an athlete who is being recruited by a number of LAC’s, including Wesleyan. She is not a typical student, so given her deficiencies I am doing far more research on colleges than I did for her siblings. What can you tell me about the difficulty of the courses, the workload, and the general academic atmosphere at Wes for non-STEM fields? Obviously it’s an elite college and the students are very smart, so of course I would expect the academics to be tough. However, vibe, intensity, and policies differ even among the top-ranked schools.

For example, one thing that appealed to me about Wes’s program in her field was the emphasis on breadth over depth. Every course in D’s major is suitable for a non-major; there are no pre-reqs for any of them. This set-up seems safer for a lopsided student like her, since if she were to struggle with one particular topic in the major, it wouldn’t tank her for subsequent courses. The same major at other schools we’re considering has the typical 100 level, 200 level set-up, such that the classes build on the previous ones and culminate in a mandatory senior thesis or project that requires a lot of synthesis. That senior thesis is also optional at Wes. Similarly, I’m thinking that the open curriculum at Wesleyan could help D succeed, since her skills are skewed toward non-STEM subjects. I would hate for her to be kept from graduating with a art history degree or whatever because she can’t pass college calculus. In addition, one peer school has a policy that even if a student is passing based on their grading scale, the college can still ask him/her to leave if they feel his/her academic level and progress is not up to their standards. That’s a little scary due to its subjectivity. It’s those sort of potential traps D needs to avoid in a school. Does Wes have any?

So, in summary, can anyone comment on the academic vibe at Wes, specifically the workload? More specifically, how hard it is for student-athletes to balance their schedules?

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Also try in this subforum: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/

and http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/athletic-recruits/ if you haven’t already.

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Check if there are any gen ed math requirements and just what they are. When we were visiting Vassar they made a big deal about the fact that you could fulfil the math requirement with courses that required very little math. For my younger son at Tufts the combination of a year abroad, his major’s requirements and the gen eds meant he had less flexibility than he had originally expected. (Despite doing his homework.)

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I know three students who graduated from Wesleyan in the past six years well enough to sort of answer this question, but not really, All were non-STEM majors – one an African-American studies major, one a College of Letters person, the third majored in Government, maybe with a minor (and certainly a lot of interest) in Art History. The former two were intensely academic (one won University Honors, which are awarded to the top 1-4 students per class, and the other got a rash of prizes and fellowships). A little polishing would have made one’s 200-page senior thesis into a decent doctoral dissertation at many universities. Neither went into humanities to avoid STEM; both took some significant post-calculus math. So their experience is essentially irrelevant to the OP’s question, except as a reminder that there are kids there who really push themselves academically.

The third student was, indeed, an elite athlete by Wesleyan standards, a legitimate Division I recruiting target (but not by colleges he might have preferred to Wesleyan). I can’t say that I ever asked him, “Do you have any trouble balancing your academics and athletics?” I never heard anything that sounded remotely like he did, just plenty about his classes (which he loved), his team, his fraternity, girls. However, he was a pretty unique kid with unique circumstances – a successful athlete with one parent an academic scientist (who himself had gone to college as an athlete), very interested in academic subjects but not at all driven by GPA, all of whose career plans during college included playing his sport as a professional, and quite self-confident, easygoing, and comfortable with himself. Also, despite his humanities focus, his STEM skills were perfectly good, and he grew up talking biophysics at the dinner table. I am pretty certain he rarely if ever felt he had a problem, but I have no idea if the same circumstances might have been making the kid with the locker next to his crazy.

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It’s a little like trying to decipher a “No Parking” sign but there are some loosely enforced gen ed requirements that, from my reading, are mainly relevant for honors thesis candidates (like the one @JHS describes at post#3), Phi Beta Kappa candidates and most likely for anyone polishing up their resume for a major post-graduate prize (Rhodes, Fulbrights, Watsons, etc.) For everyone else, it’s as if Wesleyan had an “open” curriculum. There is certainly no requirement that any of them (six before the end of sophomore year and 3 after) have to be in Math:

http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/facguide/commonquestions.html

Take a look at the College of Earth and Environmental Science (ESS), Psychology - even Philosophy. There are often courses tucked away within the most unexpected departments that will fulfill a Natural Science and Math (NSM) gen ed requirement:
https://iasext.wesleyan.edu/regprod/!wesmaps_page.html?gened_list=PHIL&term=1169#PHILNSM

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BTW, I know two very nice Wesleyan grads both were serious musicians. One was in the music business for a while, but got tired of being poor in NYC and is now getting a PhD in history at Johns Hopkins. Nice kid, super smart, ADHD. The other got a PhD in ethno-musicology and has been underemployed most of his life. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t want to leave the Boston area.

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None of my HS classmates who are Wesleyan alums felt the academic rigor/workload was notably high.

Most tended to be of a creative bent but ended up going into highly competitive corporate jobs such as finance/banking, biglaw, etc.

One thing to note from a student campus culture perspective. Wesleyan’s level of radical progressive leftyism approached that of my LAC(Oberlin) and Antioch.

In fact, the movie PCU was written and based on the experience by Wesleyan alums who attended sometime in the late '80s/early '90s.

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D will likely major in archaeology (which is the major I referenced with all its courses suitable for non-majors), but could also choose art history, classical studies, or medieval studies. She is a serious and hard-working student, but is not brilliant. She is adamant about continuing with her sport, and I’ve noticed that she seems to need it for a social and physical outlet. Given that she wants to be a student-athlete, she needs to be careful not to wade in over her head academically. When I read the various student review sites for some schools on our list, there are a lot of comments about rigor and heavy workloads. I did not find that to be true of the commentary on Wesleyan, but that may or may not mean anything.

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I mentored a young man who graduated from Wesleyan a few years ago - he majored in math. He had to work really hard, because his academic background was not as strong as that of the typical Wesleyan student. He had assistance from the writing lab and from his professors - help was there when he needed it. He participated in a sport, worked on campus, and even mentored in the community. He later graduated from an ivy with a 2nd bachelors in a CS discipline. I think if this kid, who was not nearly as well-prepared as most, could do well … it may work for your D, as well. They key is, will she seek out assistance and work as hard as needed to succeed? Not everyone can/will do that … we are all different … so that is the question that needs to be considered carefully.

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My son just graduated from Wes and loved it. He worked hard but never seemed to drown. He had great relationships with his professors and when he did feel swamped (such as multiple papers due the same week), he would ask for an extension and get it, no problem. He preferred social sciences and humanities and for his one math requirement, he took a course that was basically “The history of math.” I cannot remember any other required courses that he felt were burdensome (the math class wasn’t hard, just a bore), and perhaps his archeology course, which he enjoyed, fulfilled a science requirement but don’t quote me on that. He was also good at taking occasional courses that required no or little outside work, such as African drumming, that left him breathing space for the more intensive courses.

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Thanks, MomofM and everyone for the responses. I appreciate any input you all can provide!

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Re archaeology: My daughter’s BFF is finishing up her PhD thesis at a tippy-top archaeology program. When she was applying to college, she had the biggest gap between her CR score (high, relatively and absolutely) and Math (low, relatively) of anyone we knew, other than a recent immigrant for whom English was a fourth language whose scores were lopsided in the other direction. Archaeology kid had no interest in anythink STEM-ish. She went into a humanities honors program at a large public university.

Flash forward 11 years. She’s a star, with great job prospects, because she helped develop and is one of only a handful of people who can perform a super-technical pottery-shard analysis protocol. Everything she does is math, physical science, and programming. When it was interesting to her, she learned it.

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A couple things on the sport-- Weslyan is D1? My D plays lacrosse. In our search we are finding D1 can be a double edged sword. While the sport commitment is more than D2 or D3, in most colleges so is the academic monitoring and help. So what I am saying is the D1 schools seem to often have a very regimented study schedule for athletes which may benefit her even while the commitment is larger. I found that my oldest D who has an LD did worse without structure to her day/study/class. Does that make any sense?

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Wes is a NESCAC school, D3. But a competitive league for D3.

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D is a very good recruit for Div. III and for some of the schools on her list she was told she’d be the best recruit they ever got at her events. She could probably interest a Patriot League or similar caliber Div. 1 school, but there’d be much less incentive on the part of the coach or school to help her out with admissions since she’d be only mediocre or worse for them. She does have Holy Cross on her list due to their classics dept., however. The coach seems mildly interested. I don’t get the impression the lower Div. 1 schools have the kind of programs that offer special academic services to athletes. Heck, D1 competed for Stanford and got nothing special in the way of tutoring etc… Everyone assumes she did, but no! The Ivies D1 looked at also didn’t do the study halls etc. for their athletes

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However, realize that many LACS may offer learning services for all students, not just athletes. For example, my daughter at a CTCL (a group of smaller, less well-known but well-regarded LACS that you might want to check out) has used the writing center at her college as a nonathlete, and I remember those types of services being pointed out at other small colleges we looked at during her search.

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Concerning general education courses, many schools have general education or distribution requirements. Wesleyan being Wesleyan, it has general education expectations. You don’t have to fulfill them to graduate, but you do have to fulfill them for most types of honors, including, it’s important to note, departmental honors in some departments.

From the academic regulations: A student who does not meet these expectations by the time of graduation will not be eligible for University honors, Phi Beta Kappa, honors in general scholarship, or for honors in certain departments and may not declare more than a combined total of two majors, certificates, and minors.

The expectations are not particularly onerous. Simplifying a little bit, the curriculum is divided into 3 areas, Humanities and Arts (HA), Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) and Natural Science and Mathematics (NSM). The faculty would really, really like you to take 3 courses in each area, but they’re not going to make you. Thirty something years ago, when I went to Wes, the 3 divisions were the same although the structure of what you were expected (but not required) to take was a little different. I wasn’t a STEM person, but my Government Dept faculty advisor felt strongly about my competing the expectations, which at that point meant I needed 2 NSM classes. I had taken Calc freshman year, so needed one more which I fulfilled with a philosophy of science class.

Courses that fulfill the NSM expectation include a whole bunch of intro classes for non-majors in various sciences, a philosophy class called Reason and Paradox and The Art of Scientific Writing offered by the College of Integrative Sciences. I would hope your daughter could find three classes to take and pass if fulfilling the expectations seems like a good idea.

I see that upper level Art History courses have no prerequisites, but I assume you’re aware that admission to the major requires 3 art history courses by the end of sophomore year, with a B average in those courses AND an overall B average.

I don’t mean to be unkind and perhaps I’ve gotten the wrong impression of your daughter’s academic abilities, but scared to take a math class for fear she’ll flunk plus worried about her ability to do well in the lower level courses in her chosen major plus wanting to make sure her education doesn’t interfere with playing games doesn’t scream student at an elite college to me. I would hope Wesleyan and its peer institutions wouldn’t be recruiting students who can’t hack it academically and that I’ve misunderstood the situation, but I have to wonder if Wesleyan is the right place for her.

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^It’s not unusual for highly competitive students to have self doubts about their abilities. What they said back in my day probably still holds true today: “If Wesleyan admits you, it means you can do the work.”

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I think what @circuitrider said about being able to do the work at Wesleyan is generally true of academically rigorous liberal arts colleges. My son went to another LAC (though Wesleyan was a top choice). He was smart and capable enough, but not in the top percentage academically in his high school class or college class. Adjustment to academic pressure was challenging at first, but became easier in later years, especially as he rose in his major. These LACs have excellent academic and emotional support systems: they want their students to succeed.

I think the level of achievement that the student targets also makes a difference. Getting all A’s at any academically rigorous LAC is extremely demanding and requires an intense focus. Getting a mixture of A’s and B’s while maintaining a balanced life is reasonably achievable if the student fulfills the course requirements and takes advantage of the support systems offered such as writing workshops, study skill training, peer tutors and study groups.

LAC professors are accessible and responsive when their students struggle with the course material. This isn’t hand-holding, but authentic teacher-student relationships, which LACs excel at.

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No, I am not certain that D is cut out for a school like Wesleyan, hence this thread. However, she was originally interested in classics as a major, and that major is very hard to find at less competitive schools. (In fact, a while back I started a thread asking for suggestions for schools offering classics that aren’t so elite.) Add in the matter of FA, and the search gets even harder. Then, after working at 2 museums and going on some digs D started considering art history, ancient history, medieval studies or classical archaeology over a true classics/classical languages concentration. However, the same elite schools seem to be the ones which offer that constellation of majors. Archaeology in particular, which is the direction she is leaning now, is very, very hard to find as a stand alone undergraduate major. (For example, our flagship doesn’t even have it, and OOS public schools are unaffordable for us.) Wes is one of only a few schools near us that offers it. One can find some archaeology courses in anthropology, classics, history and art history departments at some schools, but not a true major or minor. ( BU would be great, but it’s too expensive as per the NPC.)

D is more of a hard worker than a brain. She has taken honors and AP classes and done well (all A’s in non-stem courses), though has struggled in math and the quant aspects of her science courses. Kids at the top schools are usually great all around, so yes I worry she will have trouble. But sometimes the thought process about fit gets muddled because here I see many of her peers receive hours upon hours of tutoring and SAT/ACT prep.-- weekends and all summer long, in fact. So it’s hard to know if their higher stats are due to greater intelligence and ability, or just more and better teaching. For example, while D was interning at two museums last summer, her AP Bio classmates were taking an AP Bio prep class (120 hours) at our high school to help them for the coming year. So, what do I make of the fact that she struggled more than they did? They reviewed Bio 1, did labs, and got pre-taught material while D gave gallery tours. It’s not easy to figure all this out.