<p>i called wesleyan. they won’t be sending out regular decision acceptances or rejections till april 1, so if you were one of those people claiming to have gotten in already, what’s your story?</p>
<p>Um… are you saying you don’t believe me?</p>
<p>I really did get one. I wouldn’t lie about it! It came in a beautiful paper red envelope with a car decal (which is already on my car!) and everything.</p>
<p>It didn’t note anything special like, “This is an early write” or anything…</p>
<p>Somebody wrote in blue ink on my letter: “YES!” and “COME TO WES!”</p>
<p>I also got an invite to the Students of Color Program. Plus, this copy from a newsletter (I think?) with a feature about Middletown.</p>
<p>There’s a grey-ish, beige-ish “YES, I will attend” sheet and a white “NO, I won’t attend” sheet.</p>
<p>Perhaps they sent out acceptances to the URMs early?</p>
<p>I am not a URM.</p>
<p>I’m Asian.</p>
<p>Asian IS a URM at Wesleyan!!!</p>
<p>I didn’t think so.</p>
<p>It’s 10% Asian, not including international students. I’m pretty sure about half of international students are Asian, which would add another 3% to around a 13% total population of Asians.</p>
<p>And considering that Asians make up only about 4% of the American population…</p>
<p>No, Asians are most definitely not under-represented at Wesleyan. It even says so in The Gatekeepers.</p>
<p>Then why were you invited to the Students of Color weekend?</p>
<p>i’m definitely not accusing you! but that’s what wesleyan told me…so hmm i guess we’ll just have to see if others start getting letters.</p>
<p>Asians are invited to student-of-color weekend. While Asians are not URMs at most top schools, including Wesleyan, they aren’t an ORM (over-represented minority) at Wesleyan, either, really. Perhaps they are compared to the total population, but we know that isn’t quite how it works in the competitive modern day college admissions process.</p>
<p>I believe that you may be able to call if you haven’t gotten your decision by April 1, and they’ll tell you over the phone. I was ED last year, but I wound up getting it on exactly the day they said I would; some RD kids got it a little early, most around April 1st itself, and a few internationals found out ridiculously late and were going insane.</p>
<p>quiltguru…</p>
<p>“Students of Color” means “students of color.” “Students of color” does not mean under-represented minority.</p>
<p>Asians are a minority, but definitely not under-represented.</p>
<p>Asians are about as under-represented at Wesleyan as they are at Columbia… or Yale… or most any other top-tier school.</p>
<p>I’ll admit. I’m a “student of color.” So what if I’m a little yellow? So are over a tenth of Wes kids…</p>
<p>It gets a little confusing. But, URM is sort of a technical term that gets tossed around in discussions about affirmative action. It has to do with both historic patterns of discrimination as well as means and access to present day opportunities. Ultimately, it has to do with what a college is permitted to do in order to redress perceived inequities in means, access and historic discrimination.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is fortunate in that it has been able to attract Asians as well as Americans of Asian descent who are so well-qualified and in such numbers that they compete with the best qualified whites for seats in the freshman class.</p>
<p>That is not and has not always been true of blacks, Latinos/Latinas, Chicanos, native peoples and other underprivileged groups (including poor southern whites, IMO.) Affirmative action in those terms may mean fashioning methods of reaching out to some groups which may be unconventional and not always “by the book”.</p>
<p>This does not mean that Asians – as a group – are not valued people who bring a unique perspective to the Wesleyan campus. They are and they do, which is why for all intents and purposes they are treated as URMs. There are specially designed recruitment materials aimed specifically at them; there are student groups devoted to them; and, when calculating how “diverse” a campus is, most guide books include them. And, frankly, if it were up to me, I would include Jewish people in those same diversity calculations. But, hey – I’m only a lowly ■■■■■.</p>
<p>But back to the OP’s question: WHat’s going on? Another poster said she/he got an acceptance too. It’s weird that their website and apparently their admission representatives are ‘denying’ sending out acceptances early. What gives?</p>
<p>I got in as well so it’s definitely true. But I am also a URM so it could be possible that they are sending those letters first. Since there is the students of color weekend, we need to send in our RSVP to them. So Wesleyan might be sending it out early.</p>
<p>i bet that is it…also they did say that ed2 people might find out earlier, but i don’t think all these people applied ed2.</p>
<p>Oh. It’s because of the URM thing. I feel less panicky now.</p>
<p>Oh! That makes sense, I completely forgot; that happened last year, too. Since the Students of Color weekend is earlier than WesFest, they try to send out those letters earlier to allow people time to make plans to go to it.</p>
<p>(By the way - definitelydefinitely go to SOC Weekend or Wesfest if you can! Fantastic experience, seriously)</p>
<p>It is not clear to me why Wesleyan would need to send certain decisions earlier than others, despite the earlier weekend for Students of Color. It would only make sense that all decisions be sent on the same day (as does MIT) even if that day is earlier than April 1st. It seems unfair to applicants who are not recruited minorities.</p>
<p>Yeah, actually that does seem to be going a bit far. As pro-affirmative action as I am, I think it’s kind of inconsiderate to to send certain URM acceptances so early, leaving the rest of us on the edge of our seats. Oh, well, I guess its not that different from Swarthmore sending early writes (or maybe just likely letters, is there a difference?) to recruited minorities.</p>
<p>does wes only send by mail?</p>
<p>Effulgent, you got a car decal? I didn’t get one. Just like a white sticker that said, “WES”, is that the car decal? </p>
<p>Anyways, what is the difference between the Students of Color weekend and Wesfest?</p>