Which college is better? Socially, athletically, and academically?
Athletically approaching parity, but Middlebury will always be more of a jock school. Academically a wash. I had three friends who were transfers from Middlebury and base my assessment solely on that. Socially, Middlebury’s way more “bro,” but that too seems to have shifted somewhat in the years since I’ve left. I went to Bowdoin before Wesleyan and the culture at Midd and Bowdoin at that time sounded nearly indistinguishable except for a strong but oddly unspoken left-wing slant at Bowdoin (which I appreciated, the slant, not the unspokenness), whereas Middlebury seems to graduate more…pardon the word…tools.
@babybottlecop : Won’t you be matriculating at Middlebury this coming semester?
My son was accepted and considered both. We toured them all multiple times, met with students, etc. None of which is as good as the perspective of current students…
We liked both, a lot.
I would say academically overall they are on par. There are specific majors that have particularly great reputations at one or the other but if you don’t know exactly what you plan to study I would consider academics a wash in your decision.
Athletically, it depends how you define it. Both have success in various sports in the NESCAC. But Wesleyan, which has about 500 more undergraduate students overall than Midd, has a much lower ratio of athletes to the total student population – less than 20% versus mid-30%. So vibe-wise, athletes are going to be a much more obvious presence in the culture at Midd than Wesleyan. And Midd definitely has a reputation of being more of a jock school than Wes. When my son did an overnight at Midd current students were definitely categorizing people has “Bros” (i.e. athletes) or not (they had labels for the non-Bros but I’ve forgotten). He didn’t experience that kind of labeling at Wes.
Socially, they are not that far apart, but Wes has more of a reputation as a party-hard school, for a few reasons. One, because despite the fact that a tiny percentage of student affiliate with the remaining frat, it does still have some frat culture and a history of resistance to the admin’s efforts to get rid of frats. Midd has none. Second, those frats have been the scene of numerous nationally reported incidents of drug overdoses and date rapes. I’m not sure that the rate of either is actually higher at Wes than Midd or its peers, but Wes is the one that ends up with long exposes in national publications about their problem. Third, my overall impression at Midd was the administration is unapologetic in being proactive in trying to take on student excesses (they banned energy drink sales on campus because they said it led to irresponsible actions by students) whereas Wes has a long reputation for which they are fiercely proud of being mostly hands-off with students and are much more about individual independence. For better or worse, it permeates everything from the way Wes randomly assigns roommates to their more casual orientation, etc. Whereas Midd had entire seminars for parents to assure them of all the ways they monitor and intervene on student excesses.
One other thing about Wes. It has a well-earned reputation of being significantly politically active/aggressive. My sense from various students is the hardcore people are in the minority but they are a loud, active minority that make a big presence. For my son that was a turn-off. Personal views aside, he’s fairly apolitical and non-confrontational. He knew Wes’ rep on this issue going in and it was already the one big reservation he had. And when he was there he was confronted with students pushing petitions, etc. For some people this is a huge plus because they appreciate the student passion around politics and social issues. For some it’s neither here nor there. For some it’s a turn off…
NARP…Non-athletic regular person.
Following up on merc81’s question, why would the OP post exactly the same questions for Wesleyan, Trinity and Vanderbilt all comparing to Middlebury when based on previous posts the OP should be a rising college Freshman this fall?
Wesleyan students would take issue with at least part of that statement. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they are subjected to “fire inspections” to a far greater degree than their comrades at other LACs, and it widely assumed to be a pretext for seizing contraband. Even small amounts of pot are routinely reported to the Middletown police (Wesleyan’s Clery Act statistics for drug and alcohol busts tend to bear this out) and the irony is that the serious pushers went undetected for so long.
“Socially, they are not that far apart, but Wes has more of a reputation as a party-hard school, for a few reasons. One, because despite the fact that a tiny percentage of student affiliate with the remaining frat, it does still have some frat culture and a history of resistance to the admin’s efforts to get rid of frats. Midd has none. Second, those frats have been the scene of numerous nationally reported incidents of drug overdoses and date rapes. I’m not sure that the rate of either is actually higher at Wes than Midd or its peers, but Wes is the one that ends up with long exposes in national publications about their problem.”
Part of the reason these exceptionally rare events at Wesleyan received the attention they did was that of all the NESCAC schools it probably has the LEAST entrenched rape culture. At Middlebury or Amherst it would likely be swept under the rug.
The whole bro/NARD thing seems so high school. Both my kids attend small LACs and that kind of nonsense isn’t prevalent.
@doschicos My S’s high school didn’t have the Bro/NARD thing, but I can assure you that Middlebury did. My S experienced it in his overnight with almost everyone he encountered and when he interviewed students who he knew or whose families I knew they all acknowledged it, even if they didn’t buy into it themselves.
My $0.02.
- @citivas nailed the distinctions. I have a 'bro at Midd and a rising senior who would love to attend Wes, is being fiercely recruited to play soccer there but likely has too many dings on her transcript, notwithstanding IB diploma rigor and good test scores. Too many lapses in judgment, including her junior year. Dad is still scratching his head on this as an aside - but for a different thread. However, I have to think the overt political activism would be a plus for most kids, and arguably particularly so for the apolitical kid. It is, to me, a fundamental part of the college experience to be challenged, to be made to be uncomfortable and to have these issues pushed in your face. Things like Black Lives and censorship etc. are abstractions for a lot of these kids, particularly the ones who tend to shy away from that aspect of life. Get to college, have a black roommate who becomes a very good friend, and then you have to confront it. What do you think about this Mr. apathy? It's a good thing. You're not supposed to be comfortable at this stage of life. It's almost the point of going to college. So I see that as a plus for Wes, and citivas is correct: it's much less of a thing at Midd. Overall citivas' summary really captures the differences well.
- Agree entirely that Wesleyan's uber liberal culture contributed to the press received over some isolated incidents. Whether it would be swept under the rug at Midd or Amherst is another matter. I don't know that to be true, but I am confident in saying it would be more likely to be blown off at those schools than at Wes if only because the Wes students are so loud that they even confound Roth, who is a classic student's Prez and a champion of those who are outspoken.
- It is confounding and so incongruent that Wes has any frats left. As others have pointed out, Midd, which has none, is entirely more fratty in its culture than Wesleyan, and yet here is Wesleyan so very late to the New England "put a bullet in a frat" party. I expect Dartmouth will soon be the last man standing as a full on Greek campus among elite schools in New England. Wesleyan having frats is like Berkeley having the most active Young Republicans organization among west coast universities.
I’ll also second @wesleyan97 … Wes decided to get serious about sports when Roth took over in 2007. Before then, I remember Wes as enthusiastically playing the role of the NESCAC doormat in just about every sport. They hadn’t won a Little 3 football title in 25 years or thereabouts. Ridiculous. Now they’re one of the best in the NESCAC in this big sport. They’ve also been very competitive in baseball.
Roth’s pitch when he took over was, hey, these things cost a lot of $$ to run. If we’re going to do something, let’s do it well.
It is also well documented, at all levels in the academic pecking order and amongst all divisions, that the better you are at sports, the more enthusiastic your alumni base tends to be and the more money you get.
Take the University of Oregon for example. Historically not a power house across all sports, and a football doormat. They also have had a relatively small endowment. They’ve drastically increased their athletic profile and are among the best all-around D1 programs. They also just whizzed by the $1 billion mark in their just recently announced $2 billion fundraising campaign. And that’s without the big donation everyone is expecting Phil Knight to make. I’m guessing they’ll blow by the $2 B mark rather easily. Most of that is going toward the academic mission. Sports is a big reason for the support.
So I think your question about sports is a rather relevant one. It gives people incentive come back for homecoming weekend and those visits stir up feelings of nostalgia, and few things are more powerful as motivators to write checks.
@MiddleburyDad2 My take on why Wes still has a small frat scene is specifically because of it’s culture of independence and activism. While only a single digit percent of student affiliate with a frat and a relatively small if larger percent partake in their parties, a lot of students who do neither of those still are inclined to side with the students they do over “the man” (i.e. the Administration) telling them what they can and can’t do. It’s pretty easy for clever frat students to turn it into a principled battle over student rights. The other reason is some of the more affluent donor alum are former frat members and have exerted pressure as well.
@citivas, I won’t pretend to really have this issue wired, but my impression is that the latter reason you gave is the big dog in that hunt. I think the typically spirited and loud Wes kid, particularly the young women among them, don’t tend to sympathize with frat nation. They see those institutions, as does the administration and faculty, as an anachronism from a bygone era and as bastions of paternalism, sexism, classism, clubism, and every other negative ism you can think of. And, by and large, they are correct - the truth is, fraternities cause a lot of problems on campuses everywhere. Not so much the sororities, but the frats are a handful and, candidly, they are also a liability waiting to happen. I could be wrong and you could well be correct, but I just struggle to picture the typical Wesleyan co-ed giving a damn about frats rights to exist out of some sense of unity with them standing against the man. I think they think that fraternities are a breeding ground for the Man. The only thing I can imagine they would care about is that the frats do throw good parties, and even the most strident anti-establishment kid likes to party.
@civitas and @MiddleburyDad2, I think it really does boil down to the rich former-frat-boy donors. And in their way, the frats added a quaint fringe of “normal” college life to Wesleyan, sort of like Versaille’s Hameau de la Reine lol. But among the student the only real support comes from hardcore jackass athletic recruits, and it would be better for the school (and for them) if they were dispersed around campus and better integrated into the community. When Wesleyan inevitably acquires and renovates those houses, they will be awesome places to live or if they really tear out some of the bones of the buildings to create larger spaces, could be converted into academic buildings. It would be delicious if Beta became the headquarters for a Queer Studies department.
Not long after I left, Bowdoin began to implement a gradual removal of the Greek system. What’s hilarious is that the day the administration announced the coming change was the only passionate demonstration I witnessed at Bowdoin.
@wesleyan97 that’s consistent with my instincts. And, the reality is that frats are such a mis-fit now amongst elite LACs that I’m sure Roth takes a “this too shall pass” attitude towards any lost donation $$. Someone mentioned to me when we were last on campus that Boger shares Roth’s view of fraternities and wants them gone. Who would you rather have in your pocket? I’m sure Boger, by himself, out-donates the Wes frat alumni collective.
It will be interesting to see who winds up with those houses - they are all beautiful. You would think the market for their purchase would be limited given their proximity to campus. I’m not sure anyone who could afford those buildings would want to build their estate on a tiny lot right in the middle of the chaos of campus. It’s just not a rich person’s digs given the location. I think this plays in the college’s favor; they are the logical buyer, and while the chapters are surely pissed at Wesleyan for the time being, $$ is $$, and $$ talks. Any notion of the fraternities not selling to Wesleyan out of spite … well, I could see that happening for a short period of time, but when it comes down to it, Wes is going to write the check that they want.
I thought I recalled reading a few things a while back that gave me the impression that it was not just alumni donor threats preserving the frats but student’s protection of their liberties, so I quickly tried to review what I might have seen. Here’s one example from an Atlantic article, referencing when President Roth sent an email banning congregation on unaffiliated properties, intended to prevent people partying at Beta, following another rape allegation (which later resulted in a conviction):
“…its implications were unintentionally far-reaching, and Wesleyan students immediately protested it, holding “Free Beta” rallies; in one instance, a car full of young men shouted the slogan as Jane Doe walked miserably back to campus after visiting the police station. That student sympathies would array themselves so strongly on the side of a fraternity in whose chapter house a sexual assault had occurred, and so negligibly on the side of the young victim of that assault, was the kind of eccentric Wesleyan reaction that no one could have predicted.”
Full article (very long) here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-dark-power-of-fraternities/357580/
@citivas , very surprising. Well, at least we can say the Wes kids are consistent and don’t cherry pick the situations in which they align themselves against the establishment. 
It sounds like Roth would have been better off just telling people that you’re on your own if you hang out at the frats because the university does not recognize them. But telling people they can’t congregate … you’re asking for the response he got.
In the full article it sounds like they had done exactly that – sent an email warning people that Beta was an unsavory dangerous place and discouraging people from going. Then the new rape case happened anyway. Though the article points out the previous email had been sent before the victim had come to campus as a new freshman and perhaps they could have just resent the email annually. Even that email drew angry responses though. The article also acknowledged that the no congregating ban was overreaching. But the counter protests didn’t just focus on that overreach, they specifically were chanting “free Beta.” Again, I think there is a stubborn personal liberty thing at play, at least with some – the equivalent of the “I hate what you’re saying but I’ll defend to the death you’re right to say it.” Some students who have less than zero interest in the frats see banning them as an attack on personal liberty and letting students make their own decisions, even if poor ones. You could easily see people protesting the frat and any efforts to kill the frat, as long as it gets no support from the school, at the same time.
All this is like a mote of dust in scale compared to all the great stuff that happens at Wesleyan. We’re observing the death-throes of an anachronistic system intersecting with risible, misguided “activism.” I’m sure there’s been some quality hate sex between these errant SJWs and the erstwhile Betas. Too much? lol