It’s complicated. Middlebury, along with several other NESCAC schools, competes against Division 1 schools in the EISA despite technically being D3. NCAA skiing is unique in that it doesn’t have separate divisions for championships; schools from Divisions I, II, and III compete together in the same field.
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If I am remembering correctly, the set up for squash is similar in that squash is not technically an NCAA sanctioned sport, but is under the umbrella of a separate governing body. Trinity College noted that squash was a way for the Bantams to compete with, and beat, Ivy League schools and win many men’s and women’s National championships.
This was outlined in a chapter in the book, “Playing the Game: inside Athletic Recruiting in the Ivy League” which is dated, but still an interesting read.
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In a recent announcement, Amherst, Bowdoin, Williams, Wesleyan, Bates, Middlebury, Hamilton and Tufts were named Top Producers of Fulbright Students for 2025-2026.
Of these, Middlebury and Hamilton were among the seven institutions of any type that “earned the distinction of being Top Producers of both U.S. Scholars and U.S. Students.”
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As I’m sure most of you are aware, there is a Transfer Student thread currently running that was posted by a Wesleyan first-year student: Transferring out of Wesleyan - Transfer Students - College Confidential Forums
Much like a “Chance Me” thread people are advised to direct their comments to the OP - but you know how that goes. Too many issues get raised all at once and it’s hard to sit on your hands. That thread was amazing in that
- It featured an OP that was, at least on the face of things, an actual student, and
- The maturity and level of sophistication of her writing (surely a testament to the Wesleyan adcom that admitted her ED1 last year.)
It’s pretty much run its course with the consensus summed up brilliantly by @Lindagaf , so if you want to skip the thread and just click on her final reply, I encourage you to do so. But I’d like to continue the discussion here. Not to give advice, but just to hash out some of the issues raised. I was particularly struck by the problems the OP had and is apparently having with the Wesleyan arts community.
I don’t know about you guys, but I was shocked by the amount of emotion around the idea of “artsy” college students. I was a FGLI student 50 years ago who prior to his admission to Wesleyan, spent much of my public school years drawing book report covers, scribbling caricatures of my teachers on the inside of my notebooks and often earning “extra credit” for my work. Long story short: I soon found out that was never going to be my major at Wesleyan. The art department was small; the facilities were almost non-existent; and by that time, I was prepared to move on. I doubled up on English and History courses and never looked back.
But I was proud to follow the university’s progress in building out its dance, theater, music and studio arts programs over the years. It was one of the singular achievements of its post-coeducation expansion.
So, I was gob smacked as I read some of the replies, by the idea that many people consider arts students a negative. I mean, who cares what someone else is majoring in? Then, @gardenstategal patiently explained to me that - apparently - the visible presence of people who appear to be arts majors triggers the same portion of the hippocampus as the presence of preppies and athletes; that
There are also people who are strident and maybe even aggressive in being non-conformist, disparaging those who are more conformist in their self-expression. This group is not inviting or inclusive and can even be threatening and oppressive.
Discuss.
ETA: I guess my real question is why arts students are held to a higher standard than other academic majors (i.e., what other majors are expected to be “inviting” and “inclusive”? No one would expect that of the Physics Department or even of the English or Creative Writing department (if your college has one). People are judged, often harshly, by their work. Why are the arts different?
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I don’t think they are. It is a relatively unique gripe as they go. I think the real issue, if there be a real issue, is the political expression piece and / or perhaps the kid just struggling to fit in with any group and the artsy kids are maybe a convenient target. Who knows? It’s a head scratcher that a kid who’s interested in ethnomusicology is put off by the artsy crowd but there have it.
As a participant in that thread, I write-off most of the adult responses to the adults just trying to be kind and gentle with a young person who says they are struggling. Whether or not they are doing that person any favors with that approach, my guess is that’s where they’re coming from. Maybe the quoted poster is also in touch with the struggle of having to be around artistic people but I would guess that the average poster here might sympathize with the 18 year old but not necessarily empathize with them on this point. Maybe I’m wrong.
There is no question in my mind whatsoever, though, that if that student transfers they ought to avoid liberal arts colleges, or any college with fewer than 6 or 7 thousand students, like the plague.
I would also say about that thread and others like it that one has to take a leap of faith about the veracity of the underlying issues as described even if one has some doubts about a few things, as do I. One may as well assume it’s all true and accurate and dispense with the best advice they have to give on that basis.
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I paid particular attention to that thread because S26 was just admitted ED2 to Wesleyan. I too felt confused about OP’s complaints about Wesleyan, but I think it comes down to a basic “vibe” fit. I agree that a larger school will give OP more choices of friends and the cliques will not be as obvious.
As for the “artsy” crowd, I have some insight into this, as S26 is artsy, and has spent a good amount of time in artistic communities, including 6 weeks at the Oxbow Summer Art Institute a couple of summers ago. While my son had a fantastic experience at Oxbow, expanded his artistic practice and made new friends, he also became aware of how performative and even “mean” members of the community can be. This generation uses a lot of shorthand to bucket people via “identity” and the artistic community is no different. While the group is very welcoming to gender and sexual preferences of all kinds, they can be less welcoming to people they see as “conforming” to more typical social norms, people with conservative values or political stances, religious people, or people who dress in a “basic” manner (lacking in self-expression or creativity). I never thought I’d see a nonbinary, queer “mean person” at an arts program, but I did, and they were not only an ■■■■■■■ to my kid, but had a group of friends around them that they patrolled much like you’d see in a movie like Heathers or Mean Girls. Now, I do not mean to suggest this kind of thing happens at Wes (honestly i think lack of maturity contributed to all of the drama in my son‘s art program). That said, I do think there are mean people everywhere, including in artist spaces where it’s assumed people are free and welcome to be who they are, and are, on the surface, “safe” spaces to express yourself.
If you couple that with something my D22 noticed at Williams while visiting her best friend from high school—which was that it was very clear that the athletes sat together, the drama kids sat together, etc. in the cafeteria, then maybe what OP experienced at Wesleyan is that they didn’t neatly fit into what they perceived as the only social structure available—one defined by one particular aspect of identity. I think if they’d stuck it out longer, maybe they’d have realized that there’s way more fluidity and flexibility across college cliques than they’d first thought.
As for S26, none of what the OP wrote about caused me to worry about his future experience. I think Wes will suit him well!
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One thing I have to admit is that I have not been careful about not making assumptions about the OP’s gender. I think it was after someone advised they not apply to women’s colleges and it not eliciting a response, that I decided to refer to her as a young woman. Ordinarily, I would have been tempted to ask, “What is your pronoun?”, but thought better of it under the circumstances. 
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That was me, admittedly also not knowing the OP’s gender. I was just covering it just in case. Top of mind was Smith College, a wonderful place to be educated but not a good choice for a student who is unhappy at Wesleyan IMO.
@Wjs1107 really insightful and thoughtful post. It made me think. My girls were somewhat unusual in that they were athletes but all of them were also serious dancers in earlier youth. It gave them and us an appreciation for what it takes to excel in the arts but they also saw and at times experienced some of the judgy and even mean behavior you described. You’re right; the artists aren’t all nice and tolerant.
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I’m glad you brought up ballet. My heart sinks a little bit whenever I see someone with high stats but who also wants to continue her dancing at a very high level. Wesleyan has a great dance department, but from what I can tell, ballet is just a subset of a larger program that includes dance traditions from all over the world. They’re all taught by highly qualified faculty, some with international reputations, but the object is to learn about them, appreciate them, try to make connections between them, not to become professional dancers. So, Wes misses a lot of talent for the sake of a greater pedagogical goal. Am I wrong about that?
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I’m not an expert or really very experienced on that point. I specifically steered the girls towards sports when the time came to choose (my reasons are for another thread). But from our old dance crowd, Juilliard, NYU, LMU and the University of Arizona were some of the places that kids who wanted to get better at the actual dance part attended. My impression at the time was that there are not a ton of traditional universities or colleges with dance programs that are focused on improving the technical dancer. I may be wrong about that but that was my impression. A lot of the very serious dancers, especially in ballet, don’t go to college and go to dance companies or organizations (e.g., Joffrey).
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@Wjs1107 , you have articulated this far far better than I did. Thank you!
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For those following across the two topics, that OP, I believe, is currently at Wesleyan, and may still graduate from there.
Well, I’m guessing our transfer student is probably not being done any favors in Middletown just now. I will be curious to follow how many of these crop up on other NESCAC campuses. As rallies go, I would lump this in with BLM and ‘No Kings’ - the latter of which my own 77 year old mother took part in my hometown some months back - as pretty typical (mature) protest matters. Opinions may vary on that point.
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What do you mean? There are anti-ICE protests in all the towns that have NESCAC schools.
Well, I didn’t know that and was just asking the question, or rather indicating that I was curious about it and wanted to follow up. Now I don’t have to.
The context is that the transfer student discussed above and in another thread is saying they’re uncomfortable with the political climate or activism at Wesleyan and is thinking about transferring, possibly to another NESCAC school. I was curious whether the student - or any student - would avoid this kind of political activism by just not attending Wesleyan. That’s what I mean.
Cool. 
The National Association of College and University Business Officers just released the 2025 endowment report. Here’s how NESCAC schools fared:
| College | Overall Rank | Endowment Value in $1,000s (June 2025) | % increase over 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Williams | 43 | 3,931,247 | 7.54 |
| Amherst | 44 | 3,898,671 | 9.83 |
| Bowdoin | 57 | 2,915,143 | 12.9 |
| Tufts | 64 | 2,707,042 | 6.84 |
| Middlebury | 103 | 1,729,844 | 8.25 |
| Wesleyan | 106 | 1,641,277 | 3.66 |
| Hamilton | 112 | 1,499,899 | 9.89 |
| Colby | 135 | 1,252,278 | 7.94 |
| Trinity | 176 | 893,204 | 7.01 |
| Conn College | 236 | 510,862 | 5.91 |
| Bates | 246 | 485,312 | 8.62 |
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