I’m choosing between these two schools for next year, I have obviously been accepted to both. My gut is telling me to go to Wesleyan, but I just want to make sure that I am making the right choice. I am undecided and interested in taking a wide variety of courses to find what I love. In my free time I write, draw, and play piano, and I love just hanging around with friends, watching movies, etc. I hope to publish a book one day. I drink and smoke occasionally, but do not want to be in an environment where those are the only things to do. I am looking for a school with friendly, accepting students who I will get along with. I am very liberal, but I usually steer clear of the “pretentious liberal” kinds of people. I am a hard worker and like to surround myself with people who are passionate about what they are studying. My biggest concerns at Brandeis were the look of the campus and the lack of diversity– all Jewish white kids– and my biggest concerns at Wesleyan are the drug culture and just whether I could find “my people” there. Is Wesleyan a good choice for me?
Well, I went to 'Deis and my son went to Wes, so here goes:
Not even remotely close to being correct. Either you didn’t spend much time on campus or you really just didn’t see what was going on there.
There are almost as many “Jewish white kids” at Wes. One really big advantage that Brandeis has is location, location, location. Is this important to you?
What do you want to study?
Frankly I don’t think you can go wrong with either, but depending on what you want to study one or the other might be a better choice.
Well, according to hillel.org, in 2015 Brandeis was 48% Jewish students and Wesleyan was 28% Jewish students. I’d call that a pretty big difference that does affect diversity on campus.
Brandeis has the 4th highest number of any colleges in the entire country with the first 3 spots going to 100% Jewish institutions.
http://www.hillel.org/about/news-views/news-views—blog/news-and-views/2015/06/24/2015-top-60-schools-by-jewish-student-population
Lol, must not be the Wesleyan I applied to.
There is a Wesleyan that is also a dry campus and very anti-drug culture.
the Common Data Sets identify the student body makeup so you can see the true numbers rather than relying on blanket statements that have no foundation in data.
As for the HIllel statistics: someone please tell me how on earth Hillel does that? There is no box anywhere a student checks off identifying religion. Honestly, i don’t understand it.
There is a Wesleyan College in Georgia, Nebraska Wesleyan,Illinois Wesleyan and others in addition to Wesleyan University. I can assure you that Wesleyan is not a dry campus with an anti-drug culture.
Re post 2, it appears that link shows a 23% Jewish representation for Wesleyan.
Wesleyan in GA is dry…and those students are anti-drug
Brandeis would be a good fit for liberal leanings, and if you were interested in majoring in science/pre-med/neuroscience etc it would be the clear choice. Don’t know as much about Wesleyan but with either you will have plenty of "white kids’ whether Jewish or not. I would be very careful about choosing Brandeis however especially if you need FA. For one, they now have January admissions, primarily students that they are “gaming” will come to Brandeis anyway even if permanently branded as lower priority admits. This was done to effectively increase the number of students and tuition income without have to increase dorm space (since many juniors spend spring semester abroad.) They have had serious financial difficulties in the not so distant past (seem to have resolved for the moment) and under financial pressure have made some drastic choices to the detriment of the institution and students. Eg the plan to close the Rose Art Museum and sell off its (donated!) collection, and cutting grants to graduate students partway through their degree programs, presumable when they are “stuck” and must complete their degrees with less funding. No telling where or what Brandeis will cut if they again hit the ropes. May not be a problem in the end, but I think its past decisions say a lot about Brandeis’ character and ethics.
Thanks for the correction, @merc81.
@SDonCC Common Data Sets are very helpful for a lot, including racial/ethnic breakdown, but religion isn’t tracked.
I don’t know much about Brandeis, but I have toured Wesleyan a couple times and know some students there. I also know some of the “stories.” FWIW, I haven’t yet come upon a campus that I’d consider more liberal than Wesleyan. Wesleyan is very strong on arts, and in particular arts for non-arts majors. They’re proud of their open curriculum and the research opportunities available for undergraduates. I was very impressed by the passion and enthusiasm that some of the students there exhibit toward their studies / extracurriculars. They are often thrilled with making connections between interests and fields, which is very inspirational. Many rave about close relationships with professors, and the university builds incentives for students to invite faculty to meals, for example. There are drugs on campus (shocking!), but there are also students interested in a substance-free experience. I think you can make your experience what you want it to be. Students there are self-confident and self-aware, for the most part; I don’t suspect you would feel pressured to engage in something you’re not interested and I do suspect you’re be able to find plenty of like-minded friends. There is a high percentage of wealthy and “entitled” students, but I suspect that’s also the case at Brandeis. Finally, all things being equal, I recommend the power of the gut.
They would have no way of knowing that, as Brandeis, like most schools does not keep track of student’s religions. They are either guessing or extrapolating from Hillel membership. Either way, their figures are of dubious reliability.
I can personally attest that it’s very easy to avoid drugs at Wesleyan. The experience is what you make of it.
The ~25% figure for Jewish students at Wesleyan has been around since at least when I was a student forty years ago (I don’t believe Hillel was the source.) What is interesting about that now (and, to the extent that anyone cares} is that 25% would be approximately one out of every two white students in today’s campus demograhics.
There is a drug culture at Wesleyan, but part of the reason for that is the administration has a permissive approach to student life. However with the drug arrests and hospitalizations that happened last yr, the administration has become a bit more strict in this regard. Yes - it is still there, but you can certainly avoid it and find others who do as well
48% at Brandeis - I too would have thought this number to be higher.
@circuitrider -25% would be approximately one out of every two white students in today’s campus demograhics.
valid point, except that if you do the math it is more like 43% vs 50% and that is only if you assume that there are no jewish students among non white ethnicities. Adopted Asian kids from major metro areas can be Jewish too.
If your gut is telling you to go to Wesleyan, why are you doubting it?
There’s no wrong choice here. Wherever you go, you’ll get a great education and will likely have the experience you want to have. Brandeis’ and Wesleyan’s racial/ethnic makeup are quite similar (Wesleyan has twice as many Hispanic/Latino students and Brandeis has twice as many Asian/Asian American students by proportions, and Brandeis also has a larger international student population). Both are liberal arts universities that have coursework in a wide variety of fields and have niches in which you can nurture your interests. I think the drug culture at places like Wesleyan have probably been overblown - I highly doubt that most Wesleyan students do drugs anyway, and even the ones who do probably do it only occasionally (it is, after all, a college full of elite students).
Who are “your people”? There are large percentages of young people between the ages of 18 and 22 who enjoy hanging out with friends and watching movies, and who like to write and draw and play music. I’d imagine that at either a place like Wesleyan or Brandeis - again, with elite college students - you can find a grip of students who like those things and who are intellectually curious and passionate.
The only thing that you can’t really equalize between the two is the campus, so if you don’t like Brandeis’ campus and your gut is saying go to Wesleyan then you should probably go to Wesleyan 
Everything else being equal (and it seems to be the case), go with your gut. And once a decision is made, buy a hoodie and never look back.
So schools with 65-70% or more Christians can be diverse, but a school with 40-50% Jews can’t? Interesting …
I don’t think my kids would want to go to a 65-70% Christian school. They chose not to apply to the Catholic colleges although one did tour Georgetown.
Bottom line is that Brandeis’ larger Jewish population isn’t a bad thing, but in terms of diversity it does make the school less diverse than Wesleyan.
Hillel has no idea how many Jewish kids there are at Wesleyan. Wesleyan doesn’t have Hillel.
I was at Wesleyan in the early 80’s (wondering if I overlapped with circuitrider). From what I read, it doesn’t sound like Wesleyan has changed much since then wrt drugs. Are some people into drugs of various sorts? Yes,some quite enthusiastically. Does everyone do drugs or drink? Does being substance free or very moderate in your consumption make you a social pariah with nothing to do on Saturday night? Absolutely not, to both questions.
The administration’s attitude when I was there and, it sounds like still now, was that their concern about drugs was primarily keeping people safe, not playing police officer.
I got high once, maybe twice, while I was in college. I drank some, not hugely, but note that it was legal then. I loved, loved, loved Wesleyan and never felt out of place or marginalized.