@harvard2021 There is a thread like this with someone asking about Bowdoin vs. USC that you should read.
Wesleyan/USC is not quite as extreme as Bowdoin/USC, which is quite possibly two of the “most different” “elite” schools you could imagine, from all sorts of perspectives. But SC and Wes are still two vastly geographically, philosophically, conceptually, intrinsically (I’m out of ally-ies) different schools.
I’m from a long line of Connecticut-centered NE/Northeast and live in CA with a kid at USC. I just can’t imagine a student walking onto USC and Wes campuses and not knowing, or at least having an extremely strong feeling, that one makes way more sense than the other.
Trying to make this decison by ranking “stats” is a fools errand. The questions are really simple:
Super-Urban gentrifying mega-school/Picturesque, rust belt meets NYC bedroom milltown
40,000 + students, grads, TAs, Profs/3k UG, few grads, 40,000 in all of Middletown
California/New England
Large research U/LAC
D1 INSANE (like maybe too much for some) sports culture/DIII sports with great NE college rivalry.
Where do you want to live after? (“Trojan Family”/Network super strong, but mostly in CA, esp SoCal. Wesleyan will be strongest in NE.
It’s all about fit.
Are you going to “vibe” better with small-town historical Conn, or super-urban, hot, sunny, ramen and pupusa truck LA?
Would you rather spend a Sat walking to the Natural Hist museum or a Rams game or hiking along the Connecticut river?
Unless there is a specific program/prof/opportunity that you MUST do, the academics will be similar to the point of indistinguishable. (SAT range is similar. GPA is similar. USC will have more Palos Verde and OC kids. Wes more NY suburbs… Profs essentially from same pool.)
But the school culture is completely different. Do you want a small, intimate school that is the night out equivilent of a Meg Meyers/Passenger concert in a packed 50 person coffee shop with local micro-brew where you can see the sweat drip off Passenger’s lip as you sit on a rickety bentwood chair eyeing a girl in a Bean barn jacket.
Or do you want a school that could be a city unto itself. Lolapolooza with dayglo face paint, a drunk guy puking in the corner, Foo Fighters playing after Girl Talk with an LAPD helicopter circling the parking lot headlighting an unrelated Grand Theft Auto arrest.
The experience of going to Wes will be 100% different than that of going to USC. And either will be awesome if that’s the experience you want. But rankings won’t tell you much. Talking to current students, alum, profs and visiting should be what you really need at this point.