Did they criticize Jefferson and emphasize slavery? That was a thing recently. Did they do a land acknowledgement?
That wasn’t our experience in early April but I wasn’t on your tour. That’s a shame
I realize this is no substitute for the real thing, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to try and put myself in the place of a Wesleyan history/government/CSS major giving a campus tour.
Wesleyan is one of those places where it’s hard to point to any academic weak spots; it’s full of superlatives across all the arts and science departments, including the social sciences. Let’s start with the physical plant: Wesleyan has recently completed a complete renovation of one of its main classroom buildings, the red-brick Frank Center for Public Affairs located just to the east of Olin Library; it houses the Economics, Government and History departments and has been enlarged to include a more spacious interior, more classrooms and more natural lighting for both studying and congregating between classes.
Wesleyan likes its faculty young, often hired right out of graduate school and nurtured professionally and collegially in both tenure and non-tenure tracks. They are often quoted by legacy media like The New York Times, The PBS News Hour and other news outlets. One long-standing enterprise undertaken by the Government Department has been The Wesleyan Media Project which tracks and analyzes all broadcast advertising on behalf of federal and state elected officials. It is regularly cited in news reports.
Wesleyan is also a pioneer in the so-called, PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) movement, with its own College of Social Studies (CSS) going full tilt with its own quarters (currently in Boger Hall, at the northern end of College Row) since 1959. It features weekly writing assignments, graded by a professor and discussed with the student during weekly tutorials.
Wesleyan currently boasts two members of Congress: Senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, both of Colorado (as an aside, I’ve known Senator Hickenlooper since he was “a skinny blonde kid with long hair” working with Middletown residents to establish a community health center.)
5 Likes
Re: the recent Skidmore review. Always happy to see more activity on the main thread, but disappointed that a parent complained to the tour guide about not being able to see the usual demo triple. The tour guide has no control over whether you see a room or not, and many schools have removed seeing dorm rooms from tours entirely. Freshman dorms at many colleges are usually occupied during summers by students participating in summer programs. While Skidmore’s website indicates that triples are not designated for this purpose, summer housing logistics likely prevented them from showing a non-demo triple (students living on the floor, other renovations, etc.). Seeing a double is fairly similar in many ways. You get to see how the rooms look on the inside–do they have cement block walls or smooth? Tile or carpet floors?– and see the furniture provided by the college to each student. Frustrating, maybe, but not extremely so and I wouldn’t take it up with the tour guide even if it was. There is nothing they can do.
2 Likes
Tour guides can give feedback to the admissions officers.
4 Likes
They can, and it’s often helpful for making adjustments to a tour route (“oh, I wish we could pop into the chapel– it’s gorgeous on the outside!”) but in this scenario the AOs clearly know this is an issue because they already provided what is probably the best possible alternative. There’s no need to complain to a tour guide who is 100% aware that seeing a triple would be ideal and has probably heard that same remark countless times since the renovations began.
1 Like
It’s easy to overestimate how much dorms matter during tours and again when moving in and decorating them. How nice the dorm is really doesn’t matter. You’re only living there for about 30 weeks, and it’s the community, not the building and amenities that defines the experience. Both my kids lost the lottery when it came to dorms. Their campuses had really nice, newer dorms, but they were assigned the older ones. They both had great first year experiences to spite that, and that seemed to be the case for most. Kids are resilient.
14 Likes
D19 had to list I think 8 dorms in order of preference and got placed in one that wasn’t even on her list. After unsuccessful attempts at a room swap, she ended up having such a great time (and met fabulous friends there) that they ended up applying to stay in the same dorm the following year.
5 Likes
I know dorms are just a part of the overall college experience but particularly with Skidmore you can read older posts where students are considering transferring and other are having a hard time making it work because the triple rooms are not proportionally big enough for 3 people.
1 Like
I really don’t think they can do this. Peeking in a window is … wow, what if the occupant of the room is in there (entirely possible, even in the summer, because of residential summer programs)? And looking at a friend’s triple (actually, also unlikely in the summer, because the summer residential population is different) would probably not be allowed by admissions because who knows what condition the room is in, and is the friend really okay with the invasion of privacy, and if you do it once, how many times does the friend have to make their room available?
There were a handful of schools that allowed us to see dorm rooms when we toured for D23 and S26 (we toured Skidmore in 2022, and that wasn’t part of the tour). Each time, it was a model room in a freshman dorm or hallway, and set aside for tours – sometimes just with the basic furniture, and sometimes made up as if it were occupied to make it seem a little more personal. But it was never, ever an occupied room, and it was (I’m assuming) the same room everyone else on the tour saw.
Other spaces – music facilities, equestrian center, climbing wall – might not be part of the standard tour, but they’re public spaces, so tour guides are more likely to be able to make arrangements for families who want to see them.
One good place to get reviews of campus housing: Uigo, which seems more honest and accurate than Reddit. https://www.■■■■■■■■■/colleges
9 Likes
No. No no no no no. I mean, peeking in a window??! Just no.
Everything @Shelby_Balik said in response, and also: College tours are a bonus. They are not a necessity. The fact that colleges offer tours means that they are providing a service, but it is not a required service. They need not, nor should they, attempt to accede to every request and whim of those going on their tours.
You have every right to offer suggestions and make requests, yes. You do not have the right to have those suggestions and requests acted upon, or even seriously considered. And that is even more the case when you are asking for things like viewing places that for one reason or another are not open for public viewing.
10 Likes
I’ve interpreted this as being done mainly for privacy and security reasons and I think it’s a good move. You never know who is tagging along on a tour and students deserve the right not to have a group of strangers invading their living spaces. Most dorms are keycard entry now, just for that reason.
There are countless YouTube videos and TikToks of various dorm room styles from virtually every college & university, done by the students who live there. My D applied during the Covid year so she had no choice but to view both campuses and dorm rooms via YouTube.
9 Likes
You and @Shelby_Balik are absolutely right about the window. Thanks for pointing this out. I’m not sure what I was thinking and it was an icky suggestion. I regret writing it and see if I can remove it.
8 Likes
Couldn’t agree more. I realize that for a lot of people, this is tantamount to house hunting, but I’d just be careful about relying too much on that analogy; one of these days it will be someone knocking on your door or ringing your doorbell, wanting to measure for curtains!
2 Likes
With regard to Skidmore triples: We saw a triple on our tour in spring 2025, so it may just depend on what’s available to see at the time. In addition, our tour guide (who was great) talked extensively about housing at Skidmore, which is slowly transitioning to fewer triples for freshmen. My D25 (a very happy Skidmore student) was in one of those small triples her freshman year there, but it ended up being a double, which is common. She’s in a single for her sophomore year in the same dorm.
3 Likes
My kid and I just recently skipped the dorm tour at the end of an open house. I have yet to go see one (and I have seen about 13 dorm rooms on about 20 tours I estimate over 2 kids) and that has it made a tiny bit of a difference about if my kid applied or not, or went there or not. I realize not everyone has same priorities, though!
8 Likes
The only time a dorm tour moved the needle at all for any of my kids was a tour (can’t even remember which school, I just know she applied anyway despite finding this both laughable and annoying) where we discovered that the showers in the one all-women’s dorm had shower heads placed nearly a full head shorter than would work for my 5’11" daughter.
4 Likes
My younger girl is north of 6’ (although shy of 6’1") – and that absolutely would have moved the needle for her had we discovered it on a dorm tour! I actually have no idea about shower head placement in her dorm, so crossing my fingers that it isn’t terrible.
Was it an older dorm? They used to put shower heads lower in women’s showers so they wouldn’t get their hair wet.
5 Likes