Wellesley College Top Questions

Every kind of person goes to Wellesley. It is an extremely diverse environment. The main diversity issues on campus are making the faculty more diverse and serving the needs of male-identified (or at least, not female-identified) transgender students on campus. People of all different backgrounds find themselves mixing in the dorms and in classes, but there are a lot of student organizations based on race/sexual orientation/religion that are vibrant parts of students' lives. This can lead to some segregation on campus. There is definitely not always peaceful co-existence between the various groups of students, but those conflicts ultimately lead to dialogue and greater understanding, so I think that in the end that's okay.

I love meeting foreign students here at Wellesley- they always offer the most interesting perspectives in class discussions. Stay away from the students who like to brag a lot- they will stress you out. Aside from those who are a bit full of themselves, you will find a lot of genuine people who have the kindest hearts. People are a lot more accepting here at Wellesley than they were back in my high school.

Here are some words I'd use to describe the student body: competitive, intellectual, diverse, judgmental, liberal.

The student body is very diverse, which is a great learning experience for everyone. It is very accepting and understanding.

Wellesley's student body is extremely diverse. I don't know the numbers, but I'm sure they're somewhere on the Wellesley homepage. We have many races, cultures, religions, social orientations, etc. When my older brother started college at the University of New Hampshire, he had to take a class on diversity. At Wellesley, you can learn about diversity by just striking up a conversation with someone. Everyone is willing and eager to talk about themselves (ok - sorry! No generalizing! The girls who are not either working on their theses or buried in books are the ones to talk to. Most of the time) and their situations. One thing though - if you come here, do NOT ask someone where they are from... originally. I look Indian, because my father is from Pakistan. I, however, was born and raised in the US. I don't associate with a culture other than 'American', and I only speak English. I can't tell you the number of times I have been asked about my origins. One girl just kept asking the same question over and over when I told her that I was born in Florida. I finally had to say 'Look. I was born in Florida. I've never been out of North America. That's just the way it is.' Long story short - be accepting of different people and their situations. You probably won't have a great time if you aren't (unless... you find the other people on campus who are like that. But there certainly aren't that many). Another valuable Wellesley lesson: There is no such thing as "Normal" - so don't worry about it. Be yourself.

The student body is extremely politically correct, to the point where it's borderline ridiculous. I feel the student body really needs to chill sometimes.

Any type of student you could possibly imagine, she is here at Wellesley. We have students from all over the globe of all religious denominations and cultural affiliations. I have met students who are so different from the students I went to high school with. The town I grew up in was very white, Catholic, middle-class residents. Now some of my closest friends are from across the Atlantic Ocean and my friends have experienced things that I never could have imagined. I take it for granted every day that my parents are able to pay my way through college, but there are so many students here who are fortunate to have the support of Wellesley to come to this wonderful school. Many students are trying to pay their own way through college and at the same time you have students like myself. It is really important to have this diversity on campus because if everyone was the same, your learning would not be really complete. Learning is not restricted to the classroom and when I was looking at schools, this diversity was very important to me and Wellesley has succeeded in having a very diverse student body.

Lots of rich students, but that's at most higher tiered colleges. Compared to other colleges, Wellesley is pretty diverse racially and with regards to sexuality. It's quite liberal, but there are groups that are more conservative that have some voice. For this election season, the students were predominantly split between Hillary and Obama--I didn't see any other political groups created for other candidates except for someone discreetly posting about forming a group for McCain. Haven't heard from that group since.

Wellesley tauts its diversity during the admissions process, and on one hand, it's true that the campus is very diverse, on the other hand, I don't think that we mix all that well all the time. LGBT is definitely a part of daily life on campus, and I think it would be tricky to make it through Wellesley without having that experience personalized in a friend, roommate, yourself... I think that for me, coming from a more socially conservative family, having gay friends, gay role models, gay coaches has been something which has both made me and allowed me to be really reflective about my own beliefs and my own worldview - and that's something which I don't think would have happened somewhere else, because here, it's part of the mainstream much more so than I think at many other schools. Generally, the campus tends to lean left, which can sometimes drown out the more conservative voices on campus, leading to a misperception of the general liberality of the campus. Religion is, on one hand, an important part of many students' experiences, and our Division of Religious and Spiritual Life does, I think, a great job of exposing students to each others' traditions and supporting students who do want to practice their religions, although that's definitely true for larger religious groups moreso than smaller ones. We have a Multifaith Council and a Multifaith Cooridor, and those are both great experiences for students who choose to participate. At the same time, I think that there are always going to be very loud voices on campus, proudly liberal, proudly atheistic - or at least, seeing themselves as unencumbered by religiously motivated conservatism - which sometimes create an odd disjuncture in daily life. On one hand, I feel very comfortable being Catholic here, especially because the Newman community is very welcoming of people at all points on the spectrum of Catholocism. On the other hand, I've had friends tell me that they think religion is stupid, religious people are stupid - and they often backpedal from that, or say, "well, not you, but most people" and that can be really frustrating.

I can't imagine a girl who would feel out of place at Wellesley -- there are so many different kinds of people here and so many organizations to support them. Wellesley is incredibly diverse, but groups tend to self-segregate, either by race, ethnicity, sexual preferences. The school gives a lot of financial aid, but a lot of girls' families also pay the entire tuition. The campus is incredibly liberal -- there is a republican club, but they're pretty far underground.