I am very impressed with Colby. I would pick it over Weslyan any day.
“I am very impressed with Colby. I would pick it over Weslyan any day.”
Funny; I had the opposite reaction.
“You put your finger on the difference - Wesleyan has a test option, while Vassar does not, which has the effect of pumping both the applications and the average test numbers up a bit. Nevertheless, IMHO, Vassar and Wesleyan are peers. The distinctions are small.”
That has always been and is my impression as well.
Colby is known for its global outlook, close-knit community as evidenced by its Orientation program, exciting J term in warm, exotic locations, and highly accessible research opportunities. Its definitely undervalued and a real sleeper. They wooed their newly minted Dean of Admissions from Stanford. The best thing is that I think this is a star that is still rising to its zenith. Get in on it now before it goes the way of Pomona, Williams, and Amherst.
By standardized scoring data across sources, Vassar compares favorably with Wesleyan:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-610-smartest-colleges-in-america-2015-9
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10
These analyses, however, have not been updated for the most recently admitted class.
@preppedparent , this is the first post of yours I’ve seen that is clearly pushing an agenda. I’m guessing you’ve just had a kid admitted there.
Your post read like the first page on the college website. Are you coming next with the school’s mission statement?
FWIW, there are other schools on the rise, others have J terms, most of the good ones have great and accessible research opps and have people with impressive backgrounds working for them.
Not your best work my friend.
@MiddleburyDad2 You made me smile. Maybe I feel a little guilty. I was accepted and went to an ivy. DD #1 accepted with a Presidential Scholarship and didn’t attend to go to a better school. Daughter #2 got accepted with a research scholarship and…Best blueberry ice cream there though, and I really like the college. Colby’s a great place, and I thought OP should put it on her list. Enough said. Not my best work? I thought the newly minted part was good.
I would look at the school’s published class of 2020 profiles.
While Colby is a wonderful school, my impression is that its campus culture and Wesleyan’s are quite different. Wesleyan’s is more music and arts oriented, with a nerdy bent. Colby seems more straight-forward academics. The students seem different too, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but the Colby student seems more inclined to be competitive and that’s a focus: being competitive. Wesleyan students can be nerdy into their arty or academic focus and less concerned about what their peers are doing. Like at Weseleyan you’re more likely to find the student who just discovered this cool instrument from Indonesia and the kids in the dining hall would be all nerdy excited about it as they crowd around and say: Cool! Not that that wouldn’t happen at Colby, but it’s more likely at Wesleyan. More in the culture.
I’ve always gotten an impression of blandness from Colby–Bryant Gumbel, Billy Bush, the Gossip Girl author. Yawn.
Bowdoin, my first undergraduate school, had less colorful students than Wesleyan but they were intense and interesting. My hallmate won the Pulitzer for his book “All the Light We Cannot See” a few years back, another friend, Auden Schendler has become an inflential environmentalist, and my Wesleyan classmates included Amanda Palmer, Santi White (Santigold), and Dan Handler (Lemony Snicket). Colby seems like a tool shed.
Bryant Gumbel graduated from Bates.
Colby is a great community. Lots of undergrad research going on and mentoring by profs. Great food, great dorms. Totally underrated. Only problem is its in Waterville, and those winters get cold. No avoiding that despite their tunnels.
Colby has tunnels?
Oops…at Bowdoin, there was a sort of lumping together of the “other” Maine colleges 
If we’d had the train in Brunswick, as they do now, I might not have transferred. Glad I did though. For all its endowment vicissitudes and bizarre fluctuations in the rankings (although this year Forbes ranked it at 8 or 9 among ALL schools, including research universities, with a methodology based on outcome)–when I went it was ranked 6th or 7th, nobody talked about Pomona, and many of my friends were transfers from good schools: Dartmouth, Middlebury, Williams, Swarthmore, Cornell, and three from the University of Chicago. What made Wesleyan such a rewarding place for me was the open-heartedness of the students. The school somehow manages to bring in loving, witty people. Certainly there is the large and strident social justice warrior contingent (and I’m with them on most issues), but even they tend to be very sweet. The only thing I missed from Bowdoin was the food. Wesleyan has good food–even better now, I’ve visited twice over the past two months–but I doubt there’s another school that serves the fancy/healthy-restaurant quality food Bowdoin does. Amherst, Williams, Swat, and Middlebury and others can afford to. I’ve always wondered why they don’t. Don’t know if Harvard has changed in that area, but the many meals I ate there were .
Gumbel has more of a Colby “affect” (read: douche) though lol. Bates kids seem more fun.
@preppedparent so I take it D2 is attending? Wonderful. Great school.
As I think most, or at least many, of us view it, this collection of schools are interchangeable from a quality standpoint. You’re going to attend school with resources, smart classmates, great faculty who will be focused on undergraduate teaching and an overall interesting and thought-provoking environment.
Best of luck to her.
@wesleyan97 I continue to enjoy reading your posts. Your use of language is always impressive and entertaining.
Although I did not attend Wesleyan, and with my D and last child now committed to play soccer at Skidmore, I won’t have a child attend either. During the recruiting process with all three of my kids, Wesleyan always impressed. The more you looked into the school, the better the story. I think Roth, for whatever faults people might in him, has the absolute best interests of the school at heart and seems to understand that the future of high-end private liberal arts education is tied to financial independence. But even there, what I admire about him and Wesleyan is a steadfast determination to not follow and try and “catch” the others who, but serendipity or by plan, did well with their investments during the last great bull run and have separated themselves financially (Williams, Amherst & Pomona). There is always thought behind his moves - grow the endowment, be more fiscally responsible than his predecessors, don’t build just to build, and use resources smartly. This is a man that is clearly managing Wesleyan for greatness today with a keen eye on tomorrow. I’d say Wes is lucky to have him, but he’s so clearly passionate about his alma mater.
What I think most impresses me about Wes is the range of things they’re good at. Quietly a powerhouse in the sciences, particularly physics and astronomy, very solid in econ and the other social sciences, a writing powerhouse and, of course, the only true LAC with a film program, and what a program it is. The range of horsepower in the natural sciences AND the arts is impressive to me.
And you’re right: I cannot think of a small college with a better “outcomes” story than Wesleyan. I think the type of kid attracted to this independently spirited institution has as much to do with those outcomes as what goes on during their four years there.
Colby has a cute red-brick design, but, I could never get over the fact that it’s campus is younger than I am. The original was officially vacated in 1952 after becoming landlocked. Contrast this with Wesleyan where its first president occupies a burial plot right in the middle of the freshman quad and, according to legend, served as the inspiration for “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”.
Also in my class at Wesleyan were Craig Thomas and Carter Bays. I never watched their show, How I Met Your Mother, but apparently it ran for a while. Jed Hoyer and Eric Mangini, who have jobs in professional sports (about which I know nothing), were there too. I was going to give Colby Annie Proulx, but she was merely an exchange student.
Among the highlights academically for me were taking a course on the politically complicated but otherwise awesome John Perry Barlow and a creative writing workshop with the eminent Annie Dillard. And those were my “fun” (but challenging) courses. I was a Molecular Biology and Biochemistry major.
Frankly a ranking methodology that places Washington & Lee , Davidson (good school, but still), Colby, Colgate, Hamilton, Claremont McKenna (West Coast Wharton–for those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like), and Grinnell above Wesleyan is prima facie risible. I guess it is just about money. Perhaps Trump’s assumption of power will motivate some of Wesleyan’s wealthiest alums to bring us back into fiscal parity with AWS.
I don’t think anyone cares about Buffy anymore. However, one of the two co-creators (and writer/director/etc.) of Game of Thrones was another notable person at Wesleyan when I attended and the creator of Mad Men graduated a decade before. For an LAC to have such an immense presence in Hollywood is staggering. Wesleyan ranks highly among all schools or doctoral degree productivity, which none of the other colleges I mentioned above, save Grinnell, can claim.
Chirimbolady - now that the deadlines have passed, I’m curious where you applied. The bullets you listed appear to perfectly describe Carleton and Grinnell. Hope you applied to both. Carleton (20.6%) and Grinnell (18%) each had slightly higher 2016 acceptance rates than Wesleyan (17.7%). Oberlin perhaps also a fit, although I am less familiar with it.