Hey '10: be a Senior Interviewer

Admissions is beginning the hiring process for 2009-2010 Senior Interviewers. A brief job description includes:

• Interview prospective students in the Summer and/or Fall
• Co-lead information sessions with Admission Deans to prospective students and
• families
• Availability during WesFest and other special events in Fall and Spring

To learn more about the Senior Interviewer position, attend one of these two info sessions, where Admissions will go over the details of the position, answer questions, and have current senior interviewers available to talk with:

Where: Admissions Office
When: Wednesday, February 18 at 7pm OR Sunday, February 22 at 7pm

Application deadlines for students on campus and those studying abroad are Friday, March 6th, and Monday August 17th, at 5pm respectively. If you are unable to attend either of the two information sessions and would like to learn more about the position, please feel free to email jsilver01@wes or speak to a current Senior Interviewer.

Hey Frosh, Show Your Room To Pre-frosh!

Are you a frosh who lives in Fauver or Clark? Do you love your room? Do you get along with your roommate? If you've answered yes to any of the above, then sign up to show off your rooms to pre-frosh and their parents on their tour of campus! If you've got it, flaunt it.

Just click on the Link and then hit the **Frosh Click Here** button.

Why? It's a great way to meet pre-frosh and their parents and convince them to come to Wesleyan. Also, you will get bonus points if you ever apply for a job at admissions!

Wesleyan is smokin'

Over at Roth on Wesleyan, our beloved University President reports:

One of the most exciting bits of news we had over break was the extraordinary number of applications we’ve received for next year. More than 10,000 students have asked for a place in the class of 2013, a surge of well over 20% from last year. As many of you know, our Early Decision Applications were up over 30%, and we’ve now learned than most of our peer institutions are not seeing anything like this spike in interest. It’s a lot more work for the tireless group in the Admissions Office, but the fact that more and more people are hearing about the great things going on at Wesleyan is very good news indeed.

So, umm, that's pretty cool. But why the spike of interest in Wesleyan this year? Was it the Obama commencement? Mainstream musical alum success? A widespread revelation that "Ivy" status doesn't mean a better education? (Yeah, right.) A nationwide shift toward more liberal discourse, making Wes not seem as crazy-radical and more awesome-radical? Whatever it is, keep it up, Wes.

Admissions h4x0rs Facebook to seduce pre-frosh

Breaking Facebook's Terms of Service by creating an account under the name Stewart Reid House, Admissions has started a Facebook Group called WesAdmits 2013, a place for pre-frosh to gather and talk about how cool and debauched they are.

Just kidding, pre-frosh. We love you. And I'd love you even more if you weren't a constant reminder of how close I am to graduation.

Wesleyan Early-Decision Applications Up 40%

A New York Times article reported today that Wesleyan Early-Decision Round I applications increased by forty percent. While this year was initially speculated to show a dip in applications, due to the nation’s financial crisis, Wesleyan’s rate is currently unprecedented.

Wesleyan’s competition has also seen significant increases in early-decision applications: Dartmouth, Middlebury at 10 %, Haverford at 14 %, Pomona at 20 %. Wesleyan’s rivals, Williams and Amherst, rates have remained stagnant.

Greg Pyke, Senior Associate Dean of Admissions at Wesleyan remarked on the outstanding increase:
“It’s hard to believe that one group of 17-year-olds has become more decisive than the group you saw the previous year. So maybe it’s that in a time of economic uncertainty, people want something settled.”

To what should we attribute this increase in applications? Could it be due to all of the press Obama conjured for the University this past summer? Or the success of Wesleyan alumni in mainstream music (MGMT, Santogold)? Why are we out-competing our competition?

Read the full article

Admissions Checks Facebook

This strikes me as obvious and inevitable, but here's the proof anyway. Admissions officers check Facebook - no doubt this applies to grad schools as well. The Chicago Tribune reports:

In a new survey, 10 percent of admissions officers from prestigious schools said they had peeked at sites like Facebook and MySpace to evaluate college-bound seniors. Of those using the profiles, 38 percent said it had a "negative impact" on the applicant, according to Kaplan Inc., the education services company that polled the officers.

At least one admissions officer had rescinded an offer because of an applicant's postings, results showed. The survey went out to 500 schools—of which 320 responded—in July and August and promised anonymity.

Will I eventually delete my Facebook account? Yes. But yes, it will be difficult. Thanks to our blogosphere friends over at SaxaSpeak for the tip on this one.

Chicago Tribune - Social-networking sites viewed by admissions officers

p.s. This image is the fourth one that comes up when you do a Google Image search for "Facebook."

Turn us down and receive a 0.16% scholarship!

I'm sure most of the people reading this remember the big admission packet from Wes, including the two reply forms with "YES" and "NO" at the top, the latter of which promised further questioning from the powers that be. Apparently, goodwill is no longer enough to get colleges--or any company, for that matter--sufficient responses. An article in Sunday's Courant reports on the strategies these schools/companies are using to attempt to get consumers to reply to their surveys--namely, providing financial incentives. Turns out one of our in-state peers has followed suit:

Admissions officers at Connecticut College have taken that idea further. They're reaching out to 137 recent applicants who were accepted to the school but were accepted to the school but chose to attend another college. For completing the phone survey, they will receive a $75 Amazon gift certificate....They're aiming for a response of 40 to 50 percent.

Patricia Carey, vice president for college relations at Connecticut College, said plenty of other scools are trying to get a better sense of why students choose one school over another. She figures the amount of surveying is significantly more than what liberal arts colleges were doing 10 to 15 years ago.

Considering how fierce the competition is for top students (remember Jordan Goldman? Julianna Bentes? Mig Pensoneau? Ralph Figueroa?), I suppose it makes sense that schools are looking for any edge they can get, and who better to ask than those who sought greener pastures?

Hartford Courant: Those Consumer Surveys Can Be Valuable

Wes-related stuff people have sent in lately

More interesting summer time-wasting tidbits:

• Remember IraqTheVote, an online petition (but a legitimate petition!) started by Wesleyan psych prof Scott Plous? It has a simple idea: let Iraqis vote on whether the American military should get out of Iraq or not. Jon Golbe '06 (Jewno, Chicks in the City) points out that IraqTheVote was references in the New York Times economics blog, Freakonomics:
  

  They came up with a great name: IraqTheVote.org. They’ve gotten 3,000 people to sign their petition so far. Strangely enough, 1,500 of these are professors, including Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow.

• RadarOnline had an article yesterday on its front page trying to determine "just how far a famous name will take you." One scenario involved creating a fictional person - the son of Mr. Quiznos, of Quiznos Subs - and having him try to arrange special tours and the like at Wesleyan. They have two pages of a phone conversation with a Wes admissions officer:
  

  His SAT scores are a bit lower than the median there. You don't have a minimum cutoff, do you?
  We don't. It depends on what he or she can bring to the class.

  A 1,620 out of 2,400. It's a bit below the median, and his grades have been uneven throughout his high school career. And the other serious thing is, he had some shoplifting issues about a year and a half ago that haven't come up since then, but they were over the course of several months. Is it worth his applying—the low grades, the low SATs, the shoplifting, do those things disqualify him from the start?
  I don't think they necessarily disqualify him off the bat. Is this someone who's able to show redemption? The admissions process is a very holistic process. We look at you from your grades to your recommendations to what you've shown that you're capable of doing. We don't see it as a one-factor kind of thing. If you want to say, "I want a second chance to prove that I'm a better person than what my records show," then I think they're willing to look at you in that sense and say, "Okay, we're gonna give you this chance."

  ... read more
  
  All in all, his treatment doesn't sound that different from most students'; the admissions office always wants lots of people to apply (even if they're underqualified) since it increases their yield. Sad but true. Except for the whole private tour and meeting with President Roth thing.
  

• Erik Underwood '09 wants to let us know that "At least four Wesleyan Students were at the Obama rally tonight in St. Paul. Names include Erik Underwood, Adam Paulson, Oliver Utne and a couple others. Wes We can!!!"
• Alex Levy '08 brings to our attention that "there are FINALLY new pictures on Wesleyan's homepage!! After seven years, they've updated the slideshow." Recognize anyone?
• Jenn Cheng '11 tells us about the Hewitt Award, named after Hugh Hewitt (relation to Joseph Hewitt of Wesleyan dormitory fame unknown). It's an award to honor "the most egregious attempts to label Barack Obama as un-American, alien, treasonous, and far out of the mainstream of American life and politics" and reserved for "those that border on hilarious extremity."
  An example is found in Gregg Polowitz criticism of Obama last night:
  

  U2's "Beautiful Day" is playing at the Barack Obama rally. No Americans write music Obama likes?

• MGMT is *everywhere.* I'm not going to post everything Wesleying readers have sent in, but coverage about them is in JUICE Singapore ("the MGMT two have amassed a collection of Technicolour-ed daydreams that appropriately sparkle with a wild ambition and imagination") and TheMusic.FM; their music is found playing in television commercials and in malls, and their "Electric Feel" video is sometimes linked from the promoted videos section on Youtube. Seriously, they're everywhere.
  

Meet the Class of 2012 (Pending Waitlist)

2008 has been the most competitive year ever for admissions to top colleges, but according to the NYTimes, the most desirable schools are also admitting more students off wait lists than usual this year due to significant upheavals like changes in EA and ED programs, as well as expansion of financial aid options at top schools.

Wesleyan is a pretty desirable school, but no word on how this is affecting us as well until the Office of Admissions releases some info about the retention rate of admitted students.

What we do know are some cold hard facts about those already admitted into the class of 2012, courtesy of the Argus. Wes managed to admit 27% of applicants this year (1% more than last year) despite a surge in the number of applications:

With an applicant pool of 8,250, the University has admitted 2,242 students for the prospective class of 2012.

...Though the University is waiting to hear back from the majority of admitted students, 269 have already committed through the early decision program. Nearly 46 percent of the early decision applicants were accepted.

More than one-third of the students offered admission are students of color from the U.S. and abroad. Ten percent speak English as a second language and 14 percent are the first generation of their family to attend college. The University also admitted more students from outside of New England and international students this year.

Seems like a more heterogeneous group than usual (i.e. not mostly upper-middle-class white kids from the vicinities of New York/L.A./Boston), but these are only preliminary statistics about those admitted, not about who will actually be here in the fall. Though this year's WesFest was apparently highly attended, indicating that these prefrosh are an enthusiastic bunch.

And with 535 members already in the Facebook group, which boasts 117 lively discussion topics (i.e. "Why Wes > Harvard", "Polaroids, anyone?", "protein synthesis") before they're even out of high school, this is clearly an ambitious group.

[edit] By popular demand, here is a gem from the "Are you down?" Facebook thread:

"for the past four years i have lived a life of crazy debauchery including everything from vodka dorm room parties to drinking wine in the afternoon along with the californian favorite pot
lets just say i wouldnt have it any other way
and i am just wondering who else is down with whatever whenever..."

Have no fear, debauched Californian - here at Wesleyan, being "down like a clown, Charlie Brown" will almost certainly guarantee you a place... somewhere. Although once you're past orientation week you might want to maybe reconsider the benefits of speaking about your excesses in rhyme, and also quickly jot down a list of where you see yourself in four years. Just sayin'.

NYTimes: Top Colleges Dig Deeper Into Wait Lists for Students
Argus: Acceptance rate rises with class of 2012
Facebook: Wesleyan Class of 2012

So You Wanna Transfer to Wesleyan?

By and large the primary audience of Wesleying is comprised of current students, alumni, faculty and staff. However, as a once-prospective transfer student myself, I read Wesleying on a daily basis beginning around the time I first considered the possibility that I might transfer to Wesleyan. This post is intended for the handful of readers who find their way to Wesleying while themselves considering whether to transfer here.

Wesleyan's official information page for prospective transfer students contains a heap of helpful information. Below I will give my take on some of the topics it covers:

• The Application Process -- The important thing to note in this section is that the deadline is March 15.
• The Essay -- In my opinion, the essay required for transfer applicants is awfully short. Last year when I applied, the essay was limited to 600 words, which was barely enough to articulate why I wanted to come to Wesleyan -- and being that I transferred from a 2-year school, I didn't have to tactfully explain why I wanted to leave my current institution.
• Interviews -- Do an interview. Especially if you can do one on campus.
  

However, there are some things that you will not typically learn about until after you've been accepted and plunked down your admission deposit. Below I have tried to address some of the things (good and bad) that I learned after I made my decision:

• How will your credits transfer? It depends. At Wesleyan, a typical course meets for three hours per week, and counts for one Wesleyan credit. At the school I transferred from, and from many other schools, a typical course that meets for three hours per week counts for three credits. Those three credits will transfer as .75 Wesleyan credits. It is entirely possible to take eight courses in the first year at your original college and only have six credits at the start of your sophomore year at Wesleyan. 32 Wesleyan credits are required for graduation, which assumes four per semester over the course of four years. As I understand it, you must earn a minimum of 16 credits at Wesleyan to be eligible for a degree from Wesleyan.
• General Education Expectations (info at this link) Though your transfer credits may be devalued, the "Wesleyan credit" value of your transfer courses has no bearing on their acceptance for fulfillment of the General Education Expectations. If you took "Elementary Statistics" at your school for three credits, it will count as .75 credits at Wesleyan, but for the purpose of fulfilling one of your NSM General Education Expectations, it is an even match. Take a look at all of the courses you've taken so far, and track down their Wesleyan equivalents in WesMaps. This will help you transfer your credits over to Wesleyan (they may not accept everything) and help you determine what General Education Expectations you've already met when you fill out the Transfer Credit Evaluation Form for General Education Equivalency.
  
• Transfer Connections -- There are a lot of things at Wesleyan (and in college generally) that you have to figure out or deal with on your own, but Wesleyan doesn't leave transfers high and dry. If you are transferring here you will have the opportunity to be matched up with a transfer connection. You should sign up for this. Transfer connections are students who transferred to Wesleyan from other schools and who understand the transition process. My transfer connection was an invaluable resource, not to mention that it was really nice to have a fellow student available to answer the kinds of questions that one might hesitate to ask of the class dean.
  
• Orientation -- The official programming is really skewed toward first year students, but that's because transfers and frosh arrive at the same time, typically a few days in advance of the continuing undergrads. However, the events that were geared toward transfers were worthwhile.

Transferring to Wesleyan was (and you'll hear this a lot) one of the best decisions I've ever made. Knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again, and I offer the information above (especially the disheartening news about credit value on transfer) in the hopes that it helps prospective transfers in their planning.

If you're thinking about transferring to Wesleyan in the fall, you'd better hop to it. The application deadline is March 15th. Good luck!

Possible African-American History AP?

While you can take AP classes in 37 subjects (and still only have 2 of them count at Wesleyan), you can't take an AP on African-American history. Linda Lane thinks that it should be an exam offered and in response critics have begun calling the validity of the Advanced Placement program in general into question:

The difference of opinion points to a number of questions that surround the AP program: Is its purpose to help students place out of introductory courses or to encourage them to study with greater rigor in high school (or both)? Why do some AP programs attract more members of certain ethnic or racial groups than others? Why are black students significantly less likely than the population as a whole to take AP courses? With many competitive colleges expecting applicants to have AP courses on their transcripts, should the College Board be trying new strategies to get more black students involved in the program?

The idea of adding African-American history is the brainchild of Linda Lane, deputy superintendent for instruction of the Pittsburgh Public Schools.

“One of our district goals is to dramatically increase enrollment of African-American enrollment in AP classes, and having worked on this issue before, I know that a lot of African-American students have the ability to tackle AP but are reluctant, so I was trying to think about how we could bridge them into the program,” she said.

Lane stressed that she doesn’t want black students to study only their own history. “It’s not that African-American students don’t need to take Chinese and calculus and physics. But having an African-American course among those offerings sends a powerful message” that their history matters, she said. “It connects students with a tradition of scholarship that they don’t always see.”

Hmm, adding some weight to Lane's argument, the racial and ethnic breakdown of AP exam takers:

Race and Ethnicity of AP Exam Test Takers, 2006

Subject	White	Asian	Latino	Black
Calculus BC (advanced)	58.6%	26.8%	4.6%	2.1%
English language and composition	61.7%	10.7%	11.8%	6.9%
European history	67.9%	12.4%	7.5%	3.5%
Government and politics of the U.S.	62.4%	12.2%	10.7%	5.6%
Macroeconomics	55.4%	18.8%	11.4%	4.5%
Physics — electricity and magnetism	57.3%	27.5%	3.9%	1.7%
Spanish literature	13.1%	3.7%	75.1%	0.7%
U.S. history	64.2%	11.5%	9.8%	6.0%

Wow. Read College Board's response.

Er, I think the AP program is kinda bonkers, personally. I'm of the opinion that high school has been destroyed in the wake of competitive college admissions (seriously, don't get me started) and the AP program is just one of the worst contributors to its demise. I know too many people who took more than 10 AP classes, destroyed themselves in the process and could only apply maybe one or two of them to count towards their college education. It's just not worth it.

But as for an African-American History AP? I figure, if the breadth of the program already extends to 37 subjects, we're not just talking about getting out of intro geneds anymore. Colleges use APs to tell whether or not they should accept a kid and while I think it's insane to think this, they often have a warped understanding that the more AP classes a kid takes, the more qualified he is for college. And if Lane's point is to make a test more so influential in college admission decisions more attractive to low-income African-Americans, then I'm all for it.

I think it's short-sighted for College Board to reason that colleges themselves don't want this test. Maybe the professors don't. But the admissions offices are different entities with their own standards. And this is College Board's gamefield--admissions. They should know better.

So as for College Board's reasoning, I think that's bunk. But I think College Board itself is bunk. So my only hestitation is clumping another subject, especially something that could be as analytically complex as African-American Studies, under their testing jurisdiction. But that argument is sort of under the radar so long as AP courses are so signficant for college admissions.

Interesting problem, to say the least.

So you don't want to be an RA?

Perhaps you'd prefer becoming a tour guide? Walking backwards, making references to famous alumni, assuring people that there are no dead bodies in the graveyard by WestCo even though you're not quite sure if that's true...what's not to love?

If interested, make sure to get yourself to this meeting...

Date: Thursday, February 1st
Time: 4:00PM for noobs, 5:15PM for veterans
Venue: Office of Admission

For more info, go here. I'm starting to feel like I'm making all the boring announcements, so perhaps (in the near future) I will post a video of a poodle dancing.

Oh, geez

Thanks to some enterprising netizen who posted about us over at College Confidential's Wesleyan discussion forum, Wesleying is now terrifying prefrosh in unprecedented numbers.

Hello prefrosh! We apologize for the dearth of Wes-related content. It is Winter Break. We are rotting away at home, recovering from finals, nursing hangovers, playing Snood in our underwear and watching Judge Judy. Feel free to take a look through the archives, which you can find on our handy-dandy sidebar. We'll be back on campus on January 21st. Stay tuned! We love you.

Edit: Now would be a great time for the link to go down, wouldn't it.