I googled “college admissions stock photo” and this is what came up. Can you dig it?
It’s been a rather turbulent few days for Wesleyan in the news, so here’s some positive news for a change. According to the New York Times’ The Choice blog (which has been surging along since the recent departure of its dear leader/resident Wesleyan hound Jacques Steinberg), total applications to Wesleyan rose by 4.18% for a total of 10,942 applicants for fall 2013. Since we’re all suckers for a good comparison chart, here’s how that stacks up with a few peer institutions:
It’s a comfortable leap (and eerily close to last year’s 4.5% rise in applications), but it’s nothing compared to Skidmore’s freakish 42% rise in applications. Back when Wesleyan experienced a similarly inexplicable spike in 2009, speculators wondered if it was because of Obama, or maybe even because of MGMT. Who knows what the explanation is for Skidmore’s sudden rise in popularity. Maybe it’s a sign that my brother’s (Skidmore ’14) rap career is finally taking off. Or maybe they just fudged all the data. (Just kidding, guys—that’s Claremont McKenna’s job.)
In related news, Early Decision II decisions for Wesleyan went live last week, which means a brand new crop of wide-eyed, bushy-tailed 2017-ers are running wild on Facebook groups and College Confidential, where you can keep up with newly admitted prefrosh like “darcydoo,” “ethnelectic12,” and (my personal favorite display name) “madlawyer.” For more on the Class of 2017, click here or here.
If you’re an accepted prefrosh yourself, here’s what you can look forward to on the Wesadmits 2017 Facebook group, according to my esteemed colleague hermes:
- Meet ‘n’ greets with your future peers (“You’re from New York too? Let’s be BEST FRIENDS <333?).
- Questions relating to Wesleyan life (“How many circuses come to Wes every year?”).
- Questions that are absolutely freaking random and don’t relate to Wesleyan life at all (“What are you favorite 1982 sitcoms?”).
- Trolling upperclassmen who write bizarre shit and confuse the hell out of prefrosh (“This sophomore said on WesAdmits that Wesleyan has a Chipotle and a Starbucks! So excited!”).
- The source of your class’ first WesCelebs/class personalities (shout out to my roomie…who was WesAdmits 2016 famous).
- An opportunity to creepily stalk people (and then awkwardly see them around campus 9 months later…).
- A space where internet friendships grow and die (sometimes) when you get to campus (holla at my homeboy Bruno Machiavelo ’16…our internet friendship survived real life!).
Oh, and don’t forget to friend every other person in the Facebook group and then like all of their profile pictures dating back to 2009. If you don’t do this, you won’t have any friends at Wesleyan.